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Should cell phones be banned in restaurants?
Results so far:
| Yes | 39% | 1380 votes | Total: 3543 votes | |
| No | 61% | 2163 votes |
Yes
by Sparx
Created on: November 26, 2007
If you're in a restaurant and your cell rings you should answer it. You should briefly find out what the caller wants. From there you have two choices, neither of which is to sit at the table and spend the whole meal loudly holding up one end of a conversation no one wants to hear.
If it's a call you simply have to take (ie a business call), then step away from the dining area to take the call. You won't have to yell to be heard and your fellow diners won't have to hear all about something that is supposed to be personal and private. Your fellow diners also won't have to yell to be heard over your yelling to be heard. No wonder restaurants are so loud these days!
Here's the important part. If it's just someone wanting to chat HANG UP. It's bad enough when the call is important, but no one wants to know about your life.
We don't know you; we don't know your aunt and could care less about her bunions. We don't want to or need to know how drunk you got last night and we definitely don't want to know how successful or not you were at getting laid.
Cell phones have this amazing feature where you can press a few buttons and call the other person back. The intention of this function is that the person owning a cell phone can call people later if they are in a place where talking would be rude.
Another super nifty feature of most cell phones is text messaging. If something simply must be said no matter where you are or what you're doing, this is a fun and polite way to keep the conversation going with that special someone who is much more important to you than the people you are sitting at dinner with.
It does not make you suave or cool to annoy a whole room full of people just because you are too lazy and rude to keep your private conversations private. You look like a loser who has to be yelling into a cell phone just to feel important. Extra loser points for the person who comes in with a group of people and then spends the whole time on their cell talking to someone else.
If you don't have enough common decency to think of the people you are inflicting yourself on, could you at least think about the (soon to be ex) friend that you are forcing to listen to each and every bite you take. How about that important business call? Do you really think you are going to get that client interested in doing business with you? I've been the recipient of far too many calls where I have heard: loud chewing, toilet flushing, gum chewing, nose blowing and loud music. I have been subjected to people trying to conduct business with me while screaming full out, because they were in a crowded restaurant, airport lobby, bus, subway car, train or construction site.
I have ended friendships with these people who did not respect me enough to talk to me in a place without distractions and without having to eat, urinate or scream while talking to me. I have ended business arrangements for the same reason. If I, or the business I represent, is important to you, then you will step away from the table or talk to me later, not yell at me in between loud slobbering bites at the local eatery while mouthing off about how the upset of the other diners is annoying you.
Should cell phones be banned in restaurants? Cell phones should be banned in most public places, period.
Learn more about this author, Sparx.
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No
by Jacob Madden
Created on: September 18, 2010
Cell phones have become ubiquitous in our present day world. People enjoy the flexibility to stay in touch wherever they are. However, many people abuse this convenience and use their cell phones in socially inappropriate places and at improper times. A majority of individuals abide by a social norm when it comes to cell phone use and regard this behavior as rude, but society as a whole has not settled on a consensus of when it is okay to talk or text on a cell phone at a restaurant. Just as it would be wrong to put a blanket ban on something most people consider rude, like belching in a restaurant, it is incorrect to put a ban on cell phone use in restaurants.
There are many judgments that a person must make when receiving a call in a restaurant. There is a decision whether to take the call or not. Most polite people believe that the call should only be taken for possible emergency situations. However, certain individuals think it acceptable to take any call whatsoever. Once the decision to take the call has been made, there is another decision as to whether to leave the table while talking during the call. This is done out of respect for the other people at the table who may find it very distracting and annoying since they cannot hear the caller’s dialogue. The socially proper thing to do is to leave the table in order to take any call. However, many people still talk on their cell phones while eating at a restaurant. The question of whether these different choices are rude is different than whether people should lose the freedom to decide which actions to take.
Restaurant owners have the right to decide for themselves whether to allow the usage of cell phones in their restaurants. A government has the role in protecting the civil rights of its citizens and should not cross the line into enforcing polite social behavior. When it comes to protecting physical safety and banning discrimination and repression, the government should and must step in to ensure the continuation of a free and just society. Yet, all too often, governments tend to expand their role and feel the need to coerce the populace into behaviors that they deem respectable. While the intentions are valid, the methods to achieve certain behavior patterns are flawed. Private citizens running private businesses must be afforded the flexibility to decide how its customers are allowed to behave. If an owner decides that too many customers are receiving cell phone calls and interrupting other customers, they have the right to ban the use of cell phones in their establishment. They are the ones to weigh the benefits of implementing such a ban versus the possibility of losing potential clients.
It is understandable to become aggravated when a person sits opposite you and texts with a friend or surfs the web on a cell phone during a meal. This aggravation must not extend to supporting a legal ban on the use of cell phones in restaurants. All people have different notions of how to behave in public places and this uniqueness must be respected. A free society is one in which people are liberated to live in both rude and polite ways. The government exists to protect this type of freedom and should not clutter the legal books with petty social issues that will surely change over time. Consequently, cell phones should not be banned in restaurants.
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