Money changes hands. No one speaks. The consumer behaves as if they are alone in the universe. It's one of the more dehumanizing everyday experiences we can witness.
Some businesses have begun expressing their weariness of such behavior with little signs displayed on their cash registers.
Think Coffee tries the polite approach, "kindly refrain from talking on your cell phone when ordering."
Soy Luck Cafe takes another tack, trying to flip the script, "If you are on the phone at the counter we will pretend that you don't exist." (As you pretend we don't exist.)
In small, parenthetical type, they add, "It's a beautiful world all around you. Be a part of it."
Awhile back, Ken Belson wrote about sidewalk cellphone use in the Times, "cellphone walkers are less likely to help a stranger in need, for instance, or to exchange pleasantries with passers-by. They are effectively cutting themselves off from the random encounters in public spaces that used to invigorate city living."
In Sherry Turkle's new book Alone Together, she complains "that the sight at a local cafe of people focused on their computers and smartphones as they drink their coffee bothers her: 'These people are not my friends,' she writes, 'yet somehow I miss their presence.'" In the Times review, Kakutani called this "primly sanctimonious...sentimental whining," but it's a profound statement. I know how Turkle feels. We have lost people to these devices.
As we lose humans to technology, we also lose a piece of our humanity.
Agreed, I guess. But this is NYC, pleasantries on the street are neither desired nor expected. We're pretty good at ignoring one another without the need to resort to handheld devices.
ReplyDeletetrue about the street pleasantries. but ignoring and being silently aware of others are two different things. the city used to be filled with people who were aware. now they're mostly zombies.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think I'm the only one that's upset with this. It's not just cellphones. People just don't want to communicate face to face. You're in a room with a person who would rather write on comment threads than hold a conversation. They thought television would end conversation, but modern technology has destroyed intimacy.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree about cell phones at cash registers, but what's the difference between working on a laptop in a cafe and writing in a notebook? Some people just prefer typing to writing longhand.
ReplyDeletegood question. i think there is something different. i feel the difference. but i'm not sure i can put it into words...
ReplyDeletei experience the laptop user as less present, more totally immersed, cut off. also they are potentially communicating with a remote "other," rather than with themselves and their surroundings.
of course, there's also the very annoying clicking sound they make.
Even more infuriating is the use of cellphones while at a bank teller's window. How can people be more involved in gabbing with friends than in their financial transactions? Worse still is having to listen to multiple, loud conversations of a personal nature while waiting in line at a bank, checkout, or anywhere. It's not only that the talkers are ignoring the clerk, but they are also intruding into other's domains with incessant chit-chat.
ReplyDeleteWhat's worse is when the cashier is on the phone and can't be bothered to say anything to me or make eye contact (or put down the goddamn phone). This has happened to me in bodegas and places like Rite Aid and Duane Reade.
ReplyDeleteOMG I know someone in that photo!!!
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that businesses have to put up signs like this. Just another sign of the decline of real, face to face human interaction in this numbed-out age of cell phones, texting, twittering and facebook "friends."
ReplyDeleteanon 2:05--do you know the vic or the perp?
ReplyDeleteI'm a native New Yorker who grew up on Houston Street and have seen this whole trend towards what I call "an electronic bubble".
ReplyDeleteUsed to be you wanted to hear who was coming up behind you (common sense anywhere BTW) or just engage someone you find interesting (enough of those here in NYC, don't ya think?)
I have a theory that these people will eventually move to Jersey and have their own bubble in a car.
Very sad. The workers should simply insist. I was impressed when an employee at the Post Office refused to serve a customer until he got off the phone.
ReplyDelete"NYC, pleasantries on the street are neither desired nor expected". Wrong. That is a choice. NYC is what me make it. I am a native New Yorker, and I believe we have a social duty to be civil, polite, and simply recognize that other humans exist.
if you are on the cell @ a register or bank, you can lose lots of $$! its @ your own risk! think of all the wrong change you may get! you'll give $10. thinking its one dollar. you may take out a $50. & think its a $5! im sure this is common. technology does not destroy any thing, people do! its a free world, yap all you want. laptop vs longhand....i think i know what jeremiah is saying. when you are on a machine you have to really focus in. you can delete everything by accident, or spill coffee on a $1500 dollar lap top. while writing in long hand you are less controlled by the mechanics. you can look around, eat drink. the machine dosnt have you by the bxlls. im on line @ night reading @ home. its more stressful than a book or magazine. i have replaced the lap top key board as a bit of food went inside. its hard to relax as the machine comes first, its so moody & delicate! i am more refreshed (in morning) when reading a book before bedtime. all the motion & interaction is hard on my nervous system. & i hate commands! "shut this, do that, close this, password that, power this battery that...." as ive said people love to obey! i skip days not even opening it. im not a slave to a machine. i would never take a lap top out w/me. & i never ever have had my cell phone ring turned on the street! ringer is OFF! i have never walked down the street talking. cell is for emergency- or to be used to call a car service. maybe to hear the hours of a store before going there. rarely do i use the cell outside the house. & still never answer unless i see the caller ID. & IF i feel like answering that @the moment. i dont multi task. for air travel days or medical calls ill jump @the ring as thats really important. phones are great for messages- love voicemail. but does anyone remember that there IS this service? what kind of life is this that people live? i dont get it. BUT the masses are trained to obey. the bell rings.....(or music) they answer like trained dogs. its a choice. enjoy.
ReplyDeleteMy experience of laptop users is completely different. Maybe you're just not a regular at a given cafe. At the ones near me, laptop users are people who would have been working from home or from an office ten years ago, but now they have the freedom to work at their neighborhood cafe, which they do precisely because they want to engage -- they're guaranteed to see their neighbors there and enjoy regular social breaks. I only take my laptop to a cafe when I'm feeling particularly social, because it's impossible not to socialize there.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about this a bit for the last couple of days. There's a point where these blogs just become knee-jerk complaining about anything new. And a lot of new developments in the city do kind of suck, but not all of them. It's worth thinking about the point of blogs like yours and EV Grieve and JVNY -- at the point where it's about to become gratuitous complaining, couldn't you channel that energy into tracking community board meetings, helping readers stay on top of what's going on in Albany, which is where a lot of the political machinations that ultimately turned the East Village into a frat took seed. It's boring and not as fun as bitching, but that stuff's important, and if you have the time for a blog anyway, why not devote more of it to organizing people into changing the city's current trajectory?
Cell phones given priority over current 3-D reality are beyond annoying but my pet peeve is when a cashier at a store has no contact with the customer right in front of them, bagging groceries for a ghost. (Oh and don't get me started about the inabliity of grocery baggers to deal with the cloth bag! Sure, I'll put my own groceries in my bag... perhaps I should collect your paycheck for you too!)
ReplyDeleteIsn't there some unwritten rule of engagement-greeting, eye-contact, closure?
Sorry but except for ordering in a coffee shop - cashiers rarely talk to you in NYC. Often I have to look at the cash register to find out how much I owe as they don't acknowledge your existence.
ReplyDeletei have so many encounters with rude cashiers in nyc. Sometimes they don't even look at you, yet alone say hello!
ReplyDeleteCell phone use is annoying, but what really gets me enraged is when people are texting while they are walking. It's like walking through a crowd of zombies. How many of these idiots do you have to dodge or ram into during a short walk across town?!
ReplyDeleteComplaining is one of our favorite pastimes in NYC- I try to explain that to newcomers who tell me that NY'er's "are so negative!" but it is hard for some people to fathom- we love to gripe and do it with gusto; at the same time we don't take ourselves too seriously- we're a misanthropic bunch and finding like-minded individuals who understand our gripes is partly what these blogs are for.
ReplyDeleteI saw the best sign at a register today: "People who talk on their phones while paying at the cash register are what is wrong with everything!"
ReplyDeleteI'm a cashier. If cell phone jammers were legal I would totally use one at my register. People would walk up to me on their cell phones and calls would mysteriously drop. It would be a beautiful sight.
ReplyDelete