The Deceptive Privacy of Cellphones

I'm mainly an online college student, so I can't comment on this firsthand, but Jeff attends class every day and he often has interesting stories to share. When I got home tonight, I went to the kitchen and heard a discussion Jeff and Leah were having about cellphone usage. Jeff has commented before that every student at UNT is glued to their cellphone whenever they are not in class. Last semester, he was tickled when a girl was be-bopping along on campus, talking animatedly on her cellphone, and was so focused on her phone call that she didn't notice when a squirrel dashed out in front of her (UNT is famous for its squirrels) and pooped right in her path. Yes, readers, she didn't even break her stride -- she went on to class with squirrel poop on her designer shoes. Now, it's not as though she had blundered blindly into a massive pile of bison poop, but she still had poopy shoes nonetheless.

Today, Jeff noticed that when many of these students are on their cellphones, they think they are somewhere private, when in fact they are right in the middle of everyone. For instance, there was a girl today on her phone talking (probably quite loudly) about testing positive for chlamydia. She was carrying on this fairly intimate conversation, seemingly oblivious that others were now looking askance at her and discreetly moving away from her. In fact, another girl was on her cellphone and she interrupted her call to say, "Ohmygod, you won't believe this. This girl is sitting here on her cellphone and she just told all of us that she has chlamydia." Jeff saw a guy sitting nearby frantically sending a text message from his cellphone. Did he give her chlamydia? Does he know her boyfriend? Was he warning him? Jeff also saw a girl sitting nearby with her laptop typing furiously. Maybe she was removing this girl from her friends list on Facebook, or perhaps she was doing a web search on whether or not it was safe to sit on the same seating area as someone with chlamydia. In any case, if the girl was trying to keep her recent diagnosis a secret, she had failed miserably. I'm not making light of the fact that she has chlamydia, mind you. I do think it's a bit amusing that she decided to tell the world by speaking loudly about it on her cellphone.

Jeff reported another cellphone incident today. A guy was talking on a cellphone and smoking a cigarette. He was having a furious argument on the phone and walked right in the middle of this huge crowd of people waiting for the bus. He was screaming into the phone and furiously puffing on his cigarette. Finally, he flung the cigarette down in anger and everyone wearing open-toed shoes scrambled away like crazy. The guy stomped off in a rage, not knowing or caring that he nearly set the feet of several innocent bystanders ablaze.

The best part for me is to hear how Jeff tells the stories of campus life. If anyone wonders why Leah and I often have fits of screaming laughter, this is one of the contributing factors.

Another story is how UNT recently instituted a policy where students could not bring visitors to class without the express written permission of the instructor, the dean, the president, and possibly the Pope himself. The scuttlebutt on this policy, dear readers, is that a young female student decided to bring her boyfriend to class with her and proceeded to loudly make out with him in front of everyone. The instructor had to threaten her with security to get her to leave. Hence, a new policy was born.

Everyone, just shake your head in amazement. And behave yourselves whether you are in class, the grocery store, or on your cellphone, or you are fair game for the blog. :-)