by Holly Golightly

Created on: April 21, 2008   Last Updated: October 18, 2011

How often have you traveled on public transport only to be sat next to or close by to a person who uses the phrase "I am on the bus" or "I am on the train" so loud that everybody in the whole vicinity can hear them, but then proceed to have a full length conversation and give out personal details for all the world to hear!

Do people who conduct very private conversations on mobiles in full display of the public think that no one will listen to the details that they may give out about bank details, telephone numbers and even private information, you never know who is listening and if you are slagging off someone, it may be someone they know too!

I would be true to say the "art of conversation" on a mobile phone is slowly diminishing with the use of text messaging which also in itself is an art as well as grammar and bad spelling, "text speak". 

Talking on the mobile phone is the most annoying thing I know, as you are constantly asking the other person to repeat themselves as they are "breaking up" having just gone through a tunnel or the reception is not all that good. Either that or you are going deaf!

Its also a fact that when I am out with friends now, how often we have interruptions of people calling (not for an emergency) but just to chat and the friends will land up having a conversation with the person on the other end whilst we all sit quietly until they have finished. Even if they are my friends, I get a little cross with them and have said so to a couple of my friends, who just did not realize that they were being rude.

Is it not the same when you invite people over for dinner and during dinner your normal land line telephone rings and you answer it to have a full scale conversation. In my minds eye, would it not be more polite to say to the caller "I am just in the middle of a dinner with some friends, can I call you back?" The caller may be a bit put out, and again if it is an emergency then it is different, but etiquette to me is to be with the people who are your guests for dinner.

Getting back to mobile phones and how it has affected the art of conversation. The same goes for talking on the mobile phone. Its a bit of a dismissive item now. As we can see who the caller is and ignore them. Yet we get a mobile phone to be in touch with people.

There is a time and place to conduct personal phone calls whether it be on the mobile or on a land line and I admit, I for one, have been guilty of having to answer the mobile when in a public place, having

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