All those other people are rude, aren’t they?

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, April 4, 2006

Sometimes it’s simply too easy to take shots at people who subscribe wholesale to the cell phone culture, but then they go and bring it on themselves.

As reported Tuesday, an AP-AOL-Pew poll found that even cell phone users get irritated at other cell phone users who talk on their phones in public. The poll also found that those cell phones users who are irritated by other cell phone users don’t believe that they themselves are ever the callers who get on other people’s nerves.

To put numbers on it: Nine of 10 cell phone users reported they encounter others using phones in an annoying way, while only 8 percent of cell phone users acknowledge their own use is sometimes rude.

Yeah, and everybody thinks they’re a good driver, too.

And nobody talks in the movies. It’s always the other guy.

And nobody’s child, or dog, is ever irritating.

The cell phone addicts, the ones whose hands are permanently plastered to their ears in that dead-give-away cell phone posture, are all irritating. (And we’re not even talking about those ring tones.) Whether in the grocery store, the park, the city sidewalk, they must talk, talk, talk. But not to anyone around them. Now hands-free technology even lets them stand in the middle of the sidewalk seeming to have a conversation with the wind.

It used be accepted wisdom that only teenage girls were genetically capable, or desirous, of talking on the phone that much. But we’re evolving.

In a land where people value their freedom and independence more than anything, it’s sad to see a generation of individuals who can’t stand to be alone for a second, or who are scared by a fleeting moment of silence. Cell phones are the walking-around equivalent of leaving your TV on all the time, just “for the company.” Which is why, of course, cells are now equipped with music players, games and the Internet.

It’s also why about a fourth of people polled, 26 percent, said they cannot imagine life without their cell phone. (Does anyone download “Imagine” by John Lennon, or is that song banned on cell phones?)

And if you don’t believe all this electronic use doesn’t have at least some deleterious effects on the users, physically, socially or something, consider this: More than 36 percent of phone cell users polled said they are sometimes shocked at the size of their service bill. Simply shocked. How can the bill be so high when they’re on the phone all the time? How irritating!