Once upon a time, people seemed to care about privacy. The need for privacy seems to have faded as a need for most of us, and I have proof. Consider my own brief history of the telephone.
The Party Line
When I was a kid, back in the 1950s, our first phone was a party line. If you are too young to know about party lines, they worked like this. Several people shared the same phone line. This meant that if you wanted to make a call, and you picked up the phone, you would sometimes hear two strangers in the midst of a conversation. You would have to wait for the talkers to hang up, before the line would be clear for you to make your call. Everyone with a party line knew that it was possible for anyone else sharing that line to pick up the phone and listen in on your private conversation, which sort makes the word private a misnomer. No one I know liked the party line. There is also this urban legend that some guy had a heart attack, his wife went to call for help, and there were people on the party line. The frantic wife shouted her emergency and asked the talkers to clear the line, but they refused. According to the legend, the man with the heart attack died because of rude party line talkers. Did this actually happen? Hell, I don't know. What I do know is that the lack of convenience and privacy caused the phone using public to move to private lines as soon as possible.
Phone Booths
Next, consider the phone booth. At one time the phone booth was as common as cigarette butts in an ashtray. Phone booths were so prevalent that when Superman was created his alter ego, Clark Kent, could always find a phone booth near by, pop in, change into his tights, and emerge the man of steel. What struck me recently is how well made these phone booths were, and how expensive they must have been to make. I asked myself, "Why would the phone company have gone to the enormous expense of making thousands and thousands of phone booths?" The answer is that way back then, when I was a kid, having a private phone conversation was so important to everyone that the need of the masses mandated that the phone companies provide these tiny little rooms so we have a private conversation.
Cell Phones
The cell phone is indisputable proof that Americans no longer care about private conversations. Yesterday my wife was at the doctor's office, in a tiny little, over crowded waiting room, and some guy was talking on his cell phone.
"He was talking louder than he had to," said my wife, "and I think I know why. He was talking to someone else about Jesus and how strong his faith was, and I could just see what he was thinking. He was thinking, I can talk with this guy, and witness for the Lord to everyone in this waiting room.' It was two proselytes with one stone."
People are very protective of their cell phones, how it's used, where it's used and how much it costs. It has become a very personal issue for a whole lot of people in this country. Steve Largent
Cell phones are so important to so many people, but the conversations on those phones seem not to matter at all to too many people making calls. People on cell phones not only don't care if others hear their side of a conversation, they also don't care if their conversation is bothersome to the rest of us.
Blue Tooth
Everything that is bad about the cell phone is amplified by Blue Tooth. As I understand it, blue tooth technology allows you to just hang a phone over one ear, it can be covered by long hair, or a hoodie, and you can talk to others keeping your hands free. I suppose the device is intended to make cell phone calls safer for drivers, but it has had a far more off-putting impact on the rest of us.
Recently, I was in the restroom, doing what guys normally do in those places, and this big dude comes in, does his pee stance, aims, lets go with his flow, and then he says, "Hello."
If you are not a guy then you may not know, but there is a sort of unwritten rule that guys don't talk to other guys while standing at a urinal. I'm thinking of Senator Larry Craig, getting uncomfortable, but, because I live on automatic pilot I hear myself answer. "Uh, hi?"
"What'er ya doin'?" said the voice.
I figured this guy should know what I was doing.
"Uh, well, same ole, same ole," I say.
"Did you tell that skank that I wanted her to stop callin' me?"
That's when I notice the little clippy thing on his ear and realize that he is urinating and having a private conversation in the men's room (although the word private is a misnomer here.)
Apparently we love our own cell phones but we hate everyone else's. Joe Bob Briggs
People seem to so disregard their privacy that one almost wonders why anyone would be upset that Bush has people listening in on the private conversations of Americans, including the phone sex conversations between lovers and their soldier partners in Iraq .
Isn't privacy about keeping taboos in their place? Kate Millett
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