EMERGING TALK-RULES: THE MOBILE PHONE
Almost everyone in England has a mobile phone, but because this is still relatively new, unfamiliar technology, there are no set rules of etiquette governing when, how and in what manner these phones should be used. We are having to 'make up' and negotiate these rules as we go along – a fascinating process to watch and, for a social scientist, very exciting, as one does not often get the opportunity to study the formation of a new set of unwritten social rules.
For example, I have found that most English people, if asked, agree that talking loudly about banal business or domestic matters on one's mobile while on a train is rude and inconsiderate. Yet a significant minority of people still do this, and while their fellow passengers may sigh and roll their eyes, they very rarely challenge the offenders directly – as this would involve breaking other well-established English rules and inhibitions about talking to strangers, making a scene or drawing attention to oneself. The offenders, despite much public discussion of this problem, seem oblivious to the effects of their behaviour, in the same way that people tend to pick their noses and scratch their armpits in their cars, apparently forgetting that they are not invisible.
How will this apparent impasse be resolved? There are some early signs of emerging rules regarding mobile-phone use in public places, and it looks as though very loud 'I'm on a train' conversations may eventually become as unacceptable as queue-jumping, but we cannot yet be certain, particularly given English inhibitions about confronting offenders. (I discuss the issue of loud mobile-phone talk on trains and buses in much more detail in Rules of the Road, page 225.) Inappropriate mobile-phone use on trains and in other public places is at least a social issue of which everyone is now aware. But there are other aspects of 'emerging' mobile-phone etiquette that are even more blurred and controversial.
There are, for example, as yet no agreed rules of etiquette on the use of mobile phones during business meetings. Do you switch your phone off, discreetly, before entering the meeting? Or do you take your phone out and make a big ostentatious show of switching it off, as a flattering gesture conveying the message 'See how important you are: I am switching off my phone for you'? Then do you place your switched-off phone on the table as a reminder of your courtesy and your client's or colleague's status? If you keep it switched on, do you do so overtly or leave it in your pocket or briefcase? Do you take calls during the meeting? My observations indicate that lower-ranking English executives tend to be less courteous, attempting to trumpet their own importance by keeping phones on and taking calls during meetings, while high-ranking people with nothing to prove tend to be more considerate.
Then what about lunch? Is it acceptable to switch your phone back on during the business lunch? Do you need to give a reason? Apologise? Again, my observations and interviews suggest a similar pattern. Low-status, insecure people tend to take and even sometimes make calls during a business lunch – often apologising and giving reasons, but in such a self-important 'I'm so busy and indispensable' manner that their apology is really a disguised boast. Their higher-ranking, more secure colleagues either leave their phones switched off or, if they absolutely must keep them on for some reason, apologise in a genuine and often embarrassed, self-deprecating manner.
There are many other, much more subtle social uses of mobile phones, some of which do not even involve talking on the phone at all – such as the competitive use of the mobile phone itself as a status-signal, particularly among young people, but also in some cases replacing the car as a medium for macho 'Mine's Better Than Yours' displays among older males as well, with discussions of the relative merits of different brands, networks, 'apps' and features taking the place of more traditional conversations about alloy wheels, nought-to-sixty, BHP, etc.
I have also noticed that many women use their mobiles as 'barrier signals' when on their own in coffee bars and other public places, as an alternative to the traditional use of a newspaper or magazine to signal unavailability – particularly to any potentially predatory males – and mark personal 'territory'. Even when not in use, the mobile acts as a kind of symbolic bodyguard, a protector against unwanted social contact: women will touch the phone or pick it up when a potential 'intruder' approaches. One woman explained, 'You just feel safer if it's there – just on the table, next to your hand . . . Actually it's better than a newspaper because it's real people – I mean, there are real people in there you could call or text if you wanted, you know? It's sort of reassuring.' The idea of one's social support network of friends and family being somehow 'inside' the mobile phone means that even just touching or holding it gives a sense of being protected.
This example provides an indication of the more important social functions of the mobile phone. I've written and lectured about this issue at great length elsewhere, but it is worth explaining briefly here. The mobile phone has, I believe, become the modern equivalent of the garden fence or village green. The space-age technology of mobile phones has allowed us to recreate the more natural and humane communication patterns of pre-industrial society, when we lived in small, stable communities, and enjoyed frequent 'grooming-talk' with a tightly integrated social network of family and friends. In the fast-paced modern world, we had become severely restricted in both the quantity and quality of communication with our social network. Most of us no longer enjoy the cosiness of a gossip over the garden fence. We may not even know our neighbours' names, and communication is often limited to a brief, slightly embarrassed nod, if that. Families and friends are scattered, and even if our relatives or friends live nearby, we are often too busy or too tired to visit. We are constantly on the move, spending much of our time commuting to and from work either among strangers on trains and buses, or alone and isolated in our cars. These factors are particularly problematic for the English, as we tend to be more socially inhibited than other cultures: we do not talk to strangers, or make friends quickly and easily.
Landline telephones allowed us to communicate, but not in the sort of frequent, easy, spontaneous, casual style that would have characterised the small communities for which we are adapted by evolution, and in which most of us lived in pre-industrial times. Mobile phones – particularly the ability to send short, frequent, cheap text messages – restore our sense of connection and community, and provide an antidote to the pressures and alienation of modern urban life. They are a kind of 'social lifeline' in a fragmented and isolating world.
Think about a typical, brief 'village-green' conversation: 'Hi, how're you doing?'/‘Fine, just off to the shops – oh, how's your mum?'/‘Much better, thanks.'/‘Oh, good, give her my love – see you later.' If you take most of the vowels out of the village-green conversation, and scramble the rest of the letters into 'text-message dialect' (HOW R U? C U L8R), to me it sounds uncannily like a typical SMS or text exchange: not much is said – a friendly greeting, maybe a scrap of news – but a personal connection is made, people are reminded that they are not alone. Until the advent of mobile text messaging, many of us were forced to live without this kind of small but psychologically and socially very important form of communication.
But as a new medium for communication, texting requires a new set of unspoken rules, and the negotiations over the formation of these rules are currently causing a certain amount of tension and conflict – particularly the issue of whether mobile text is an appropriate medium for certain types of conversation. Flirting by text is accepted, even encouraged, but some women complain that men use texting as a way of avoiding talking. 'Dumping' someone by text message is widely regarded as cowardly and absolutely unacceptable, but this rule has not yet become firmly established enough to prevent some people from ending relationships in this manner.
I have been studying all these 'emerging' rules for well over a decade, but it seems that the negotiations on mobile-phone etiquette are still in progress, and although there have been some developments and advances, they have yet to result in unequivocal agreement on any well-defined rules.
Yes, Debrett's famous etiquette guides now include sections on mobile-phone etiquette, text messaging and related subjects – and, yes, some of their advice reflects what the majority of English people would consider to be 'good manners' in the use of this technology. If asked, most would agree, for example, that you should 'Ensure that your mobile phone conversation is not disturbing other people . . . don't shout' and that 'Intimate conversations are never appropriate in front of others.' In fact, the majority of English people were obeying these rules well before Debrett's rather belatedly acknowledged the existence of mobile phones, and are still obeying them now. But a minority persist in defying them, and get away with it because the rest of us tend to be too squeamishly English to make a scene or draw attention to ourselves by confronting them.
Even among the relatively courteous majority, some might have difficulty in obeying other Debrett's diktats, such as their assertion that 'People in the flesh deserve more attention than a gadget, so wherever possible turn off your phone in social situations.' Many would agree to this in principle, but in practice, the choice in social situations is not between 'people' and 'a gadget' – it is between the people you happen to be with and your friends, family or colleagues who keep in touch with you by phone. For the younger generation, there are few social situations in which it would be unacceptable to leave your mobile phone switched on, or even to take or make calls. Even among older people, a casual social gathering, say, in a pub, would not require the turning off of mobiles.
The Debrett's ‘rules' are far too simplistic and rigid. The emerging unwritten rules of mobile-phone etiquette are much more complex and nuanced – a matter of degrees and types and timing of mobile-phone use, with variations for different social contexts, rather than blanket 'on or off' prescriptions.
The Three-degrees Rule
There are three basic degrees of mobile-phone 'use' in social situations, graded from the most passive to the most active:
•switched on
•taking calls/reading messages (texts, emails, PMs, etc.)
•making calls/typing messages (texts, emails, PMs, etc.)
In general terms, merely being passively 'switched on' is the least potentially offensive, more actively accepting calls or reading messages is more likely to cause offence, and actively making calls or typing messages is the most discourteous.
Some may consider that reading messages is a slightly lesser offence than taking calls, and that sending typed messages is less discourteous than making calls. Reading and typing messages are, indeed, less obviously disruptive than actual phone conversations, as they can be done in silence, but they still generally involve ignoring the people one is with – they are the electronic equivalents of reading or writing postcards in a social situation – so I'm putting them in the same broad categories as taking or making calls.
Some also argue that having your phone switched on but set to 'vibrate' rather than ring is, in courtesy terms, as good as having it switched off. But while a vibrating phone is certainly preferable to a ringing one in many situations, 'vibrate' is only the true social equivalent of 'switched off' if you completely ignore the phone when it vibrates – in which case it might as well be switched off.
Other types of 'silent' mobile-phone use – such as surfing the internet, updating your blog or Facebook status, tweeting or playing games – can actually be considerably more discourteous than the apparently more disruptive 'vocal' uses, such as taking calls. This is because when you are surfing, Googling, blogging, tweeting or gaming you really are giving a gadget – an inanimate object – priority over your human companions. Yes, you are 'talking' to other humans when you blog, tweet or update your Facebook status, but randomly addressing hundreds or even thousands of people in this manner, in the hope that some of them might be interested, is not a conversation – and certainly not a vital one that can't wait. It is bad enough to be neglected, even temporarily, while someone takes a call from a friend, colleague or family member – but to be neglected because they find Googling, tweeting or playing Angry Birds more interesting than your company is insulting. The rule of thumb is that if it would be rude to read a newspaper or magazine, write diaries or letters, or take out a deck of cards and play Patience in a given social situation, then it is equally impolite to do the equivalent on your mobile. (This may all sound rather obvious, but even government ministers have had to be told off for tweeting during cabinet meetings.)
The only exception to this rule is when the internet is used to look something up as part of the conversation – using Google in the way that one might reach for a dictionary, encyclopaedia or other reference book in mid-conversation, for help in answering a question or resolving a debate. Even this legitimate reference-tool use, however, can become highly irritating if taken to excess, or employed when such help is not really needed. Gratuitous Googlers are regarded as rather childish – unable to sit still and listen to others without constant fiddling and fidgeting – or, even worse, as attention-seekers, trying to impress their companions with irrelevant factoids from Wikipedia.
Many breaches of mobile-phone etiquette can be softened by a pre-emptive apology. Taking a call will certainly cause less offence if you say, 'I'm so sorry, but I really have to take this,' and ideally leave the room or at least move away so that your conversation does not disturb your companions, apologising again upon your return. These must be genuine apologies, not disguised boasts about how important you are. The English are acutely sensitive to even the most subtle forms of bragging, and an apology that breaks our modesty rules will compound your offence rather than mitigating it.
In most situations, a (genuine) pre-emptive apology will also reduce the offence caused by ignoring your companions while you read or reply to an incoming text message or email. There are, however, very few conceivable situations in which one simply 'must' update one's Facebook status, or tweet, or indulge in gratuitous Googling, so pre-emptive apologies for doing this will not minimise the offence.
The Formality Rule
As a general rule, the more formal the social gathering, the lower the degree of acceptable mobile-phone use. At very formal occasions, the phone should be switched off altogether. At, say, a less formal dinner with friends, it may be acceptable to leave it on 'for emergencies' (such as calls from one's children or babysitter). At very casual get-togethers, such as sharing a few drinks in the pub, or impromptu encounters, even the higher degrees of phone use may be acceptable.
The Numbers Rule
The smaller the number of people at a social gathering, however informal it may be, the more one should focus on them and avoid using one's phone. When just two friends get together, it would be rude and unfair for one to ignore the other and chat on a mobile with other people. With three people, it becomes marginally more acceptable for one person to have a very brief phone conversation or text exchange, providing the other two are happily chatting to each other and not feeling snubbed – although, in accordance with the three-degrees rule, taking a call/reading a message would be more acceptable than actively making a call/texting. With four people, one might feel free to have a slightly longer phone conversation/text exchange, again assuming that the other three were clearly happily engaged with each other. And so on. At a large, informal social gathering, even actively making calls is generally acceptable.
The Teenage Exception
There are exceptions to the above rules among teenagers, which may also be seen among some 'kidults' in their twenties and even thirties. I'm using the term 'teenage' here as an indicator of maturity, rather than necessarily just of chronological age.
Teenagers (and older kidults), who have grown up using mobile phones, tend to be highly skilled at a kind of 'split-screen' attention focus, which allows them, for example, to send text messages while simultaneously carrying on a conversation with the people around them. The texts may be of a poor literary standard, and the conversations may be somewhat disjointed and incoherent – but this is often the case even when the two activities are not performed in parallel.
Also, most teenagers are quite simply much less 'bothered' than adults about the niceties of mobile-phone etiquette. They may recognise, and even be irritated by, the more blatant offences described above – but they are generally more tolerant of such rule-breaking. If two teenage girls are out having coffee together, for example, and one is chatting away to someone else on her mobile, her companion may feel somewhat aggrieved, but rather than launching into the normal English repertoire of disapproving frowns, sighs, coughs, tuts and eye-rolls, she will probably just take out her own mobile and start sending texts or making calls herself. Getting all huffy about the offence would be 'uncool' and she would be told to 'chill' or 'get a life'.
Among teenagers and kidults, it is now the norm for any face-to-face social interaction to be constantly intermingled with electronic social interaction – and the face-to-face variety is not given much, if any, priority over the electronic. A mobile phone ringing in the middle of a face-to-face social gathering is not seen as an interruption, but as another person joining in the conversation. Indeed, a phone may often be passed around to allow the absent party to exchange greetings or brief chat with other members of the group.
Reactions to Rule-breaking: Body-language and Timed Frostiness Rules
Older people are generally much less tolerant of mobile misdemeanours, but even the most discourteous and socially unacceptable mobile-phone use is very rarely penalised in any direct or obvious way. The English have a remarkable capacity for accepting the unacceptable – or, at least, appearing to accept it, and certainly not making a big noisy fuss about it.
Unless you are close friends with your companions, the worst reaction you can expect for unacceptable use of your mobile is some disapproving body language. As you chat on your mobile, you may see raised eyebrows, frowns, eye-rolls, pursed lips and tapping feet or fingers, and hear sighs, tutting, pointed coughs, snorts and sniffs – and all the other barely noticeable signs of English outrage and indignation. (Our much-prized international reputation for 'tolerance' may well be partly thanks to this: we express any intolerance we may feel in such an understated manner that foreigners simply fail to notice it.)
When you eventually finish your ill-timed phone-chat, there will be more severe punishment, in the form of a certain frostiness in your companions' manner towards you. You have snubbed and ignored them while chatting on your mobile, so they will redress the balance and make things 'fair' by snubbing and ignoring you, often for an approximately equal amount of time. This remarkably accurate timing is not done consciously, but the English subconscious mind is quite precise in its calculation of fairness. And, yes, in accordance with the 'test a social rule by breaking it' principle, I deliberately committed breaches of mobile-phone etiquette, and timed both my offending phone calls and the duration of the resulting frostiness.
If you are not English, a few frowns and sighs and a bit of frostiness may not seem very worrying. But these are indications that you have caused quite considerable offence, and should be taken seriously – assuming that you wish to fit in and get on with the English (and if you don't, why on earth are you reading this book?). The only remedy is to apologise, immediately and profusely. A simple 'sorry' will not suffice. The English say 'sorry' all the time, over anything or nothing, so a single 'sorry' does not count as an apology.
Mobile Phone Rules and Englishness
Of course, many of the emerging unwritten rules and exceptions I have described here are not peculiarly English. I'm sure that the three-degrees rule, the numbers rule and the formality rule – and the teenage exception – apply at least to some extent in most countries in which mobile phones are now widely used. It is our reaction to breaches of these rules that is distinctive: our squeamishness about confronting offenders, and the way we express our outrage in barely visible nano-gestures, tiny facial twitches and minimalist coughs, sniffs and sighs. There is a non-verbal dialect of disapproval that almost deserves to be called 'body English', rather than the generic 'body language'. More evidence of the social inhibitions and handicaps already flagged in previous chapters, which seem to be edging towards 'defining characteristic' status.
The exquisite timing of our 'frostiness' is also a quintessentially English response – our own very tame and moderate version of the Law of Talion: not so much 'an eye for an eye' as 'a five-minute snub for a five-minute snub'. Signs of social inhibition again, clearly – almost verging on passive-aggression here – combined with an acute sense of fairness.
These reactions to rule-breaking may be distinctively English, but the rules of mobile-phone etiquette are still being negotiated, and it is difficult to predict the future course of the negotiations. It would be a mistake, for example, simply to assume that what is customary and acceptable among English teenagers today will necessarily become the universal norm here in the future. Adolescents do grow up, and their social behaviour as mature adults differs in many ways from their teenage habits. I observed earlier in this chapter that in business and professional contexts, higher-ranking people – people with nothing to prove about their status – tend to be more considerate and courteous in their mobile-phone use. This applies in purely social contexts as well: those who feel more socially secure and confident are less likely to display their popularity and draw attention to their busy social life by constantly taking and making calls. Teenagers and kidults tend to be highly socially insecure; as they mature, their need for such 'conspicuous consumption' of social connections should diminish.
Having said that, my hunch is that a toned-down version of the current teenage practice of amalgamating face-to-face and electronic social interaction, with the face-to-face participants given only marginally higher priority, will increasingly become more normal and acceptable, at least at larger and more casual social gatherings.
At the same time, as electronic communication becomes more and more commonplace, a mobile phone constantly pinging and bleeping with calls and messages is already becoming a far less effective indicator of one's 'social capital' – and those who continue to flaunt their social wealth in this manner are regarded as rather tiresome. Already, you will gain considerably more social cachet and respect by cultivating a degree of aloofness and traditional English reserve towards your mobile, rather than responding immediately to its every ring or bleep like an over-excited puppy. Excessive eagerness in social interaction is seen as embarrassing and frowned upon, and this applies to electronic hyper-sociability as well – particularly now that the novelty of mobile communication has worn off.
As I said, however, the rules of mobile-phone talk are still emerging. I hope that identifying more general, stable rules and 'defining characteristics' of Englishness will help us to predict, to some extent at least, the most likely future developments in this process.
To discover these defining characteristics, we first need to examine the rules of a much more stable, established form of English communication: pub-talk.