High-tech Generation Has To Learn Electronic Etiquette
Marin Independent Journal; April 12, 1994
You want to relay confidential information to a business colleague, but he's using a speakerphone and won't turn it off. You are sharing a nice dinner with your spouse when someone begins to bellow into cellular phone at a nearby table. Some people are wondering whether all decorum has disappeared, now that technological innovations have invaded our personal and business lives.
What's lacking is electronic etiquette. People who use electronic tools say there are right and wrong ways to act in the techno-age. They know because they experience plenty of the wrong kind of behavior.
Lee Dorfman of [Action Cellular] Rent a Phone in San Francisco says, "I don't think cellular phones contribute to potentially obnoxious behavior. If someone is prone to obnoxious behavior, he will find a way whether he has a phone or not."
Dorfman doesn't think a restaurant is the place to hold a phone conversation, however. "If you have to make a call, or if your phone rings while you're at the table, you should excuse yourself and finish the conversation in the lobby or out on the sidewalk," he says