Wired.com has a list called Five Antisocial Gadgets That Should be Banned. While I don’t necessarily agree with the final two items – e-books and satellite navigation – I definitely agree with the first three: speakerphones, Bluetooth headsets, and custom ringtones. Custom ringtones, especially.
Enough already. We get it. You like bad music. I’m all for melodic variations on the standard ring-ring sound, but let’s stop short of actual songs. It’ll never, ever happen, though, as long as there are A) kids in middle school and high school and B) wireless companies that care about turning a profit.
A case could be made for the usefulness of speakerphones and Bluetooth headsets, I suppose, and it’s up to you if you want to appear to be talking to yourself like a schizophrenic and/or broadcast both sides of your conversation out loud in public.
What about you, dear readers? What gadgets would you add to the list?
I’ll take the speakerphone thing one step further. Nothing is more annoying than Nextel users with their push-to-talk beep, yacking back and forth. You get the feeling that these guys are still living in a world where just owning a cellphone is cool, and they want to flash it around as much as possible.
If grandma is doing something it’s not cool anymore guys, and Nextel phones are about as uncool as phones get.
My opinions:
Speakerphones:
First of all, that wasn’t a speakerphone exactly he had a problem with, it was a person with total disregard for others and using his phone as an mp3 player. Practucally ANY modern phone can do this, even if they don’t have a speakerphone function.
Bluetooth:
I honestly never understood the massive bluetooth headset hate that Crunchgear seems to have.
Then again, although I have a bluetooth headset I haven’t started using it yet (mostly got it to use in the car), and I haven’t run into many that were using it.
But seriously, whats the problem? Why is it perfectly acceptable to hold a piece of electronics next to your ear with your hand, but if a piece of electronics was attached to your ear and your hands are free suddenly its the worst electronic device you could use in public?
Custom Ringtones:
I also don’t have a problem with custom ringtones, it can help you know in a crowd if its your phone that is ringing, I have seen many times when a cellphone with a default ringer went off and half the croud checked their belt/pockets to see if it was them. Not to mention setting a different ringtone depending on who is calling. Kinda ironic that I am mentioning this however since I am still using the stock ringtones on my phone, I am trying to make my own but can’t get it to loop right.
E-Books:
Technology changes, how many people still have a monthly publication to a tech magazine instead of just reading about it online nowadays? Just because some girl thought “geek!” and walked away from him in a coffee bar its now terrible technology? Most people have been pretty damn impressed by what I can do with my pda-phone, or even my pda-watch, not walk away in disgust, a fellow coworker was so impressed he went out and purchased the same cellphone I used the very next day and already has learned enough about it to show me a few things I didn’t know about it.
Satnav:
The person using the device was an idiot. Yes, I have heard stories too of people doing stupid things beause they trusted their satnav over their common sense, is this really grounds to ban such a useful device because some people who use it are idiots? If any technology that people started using in s stupid way was banned, then cars, tv, phones, the internet, cameras, just about damn near everything would be banned.
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And this seems to be the main rant in this article:
Speakerphone, Custom Ringtones, Satnav: I saw people using a very useful techonolocy in a stupid.annoying way, Ban it!
Bluetooth, E-Books: Some old-fashioned people find this new technology too weird to use, and it cost me a date! Ban it!
Cell phones
Seriously
Go somewhere private – an alley, the bathroom, a hallway … somewhere that ensures I don’t have to hear you talking too loudly about intimate details I really wish I didn’t know. Ban the f***ers
Overall, any electronic device can be added to this list if you ask me. Just because we have a new electronic device does not mean we can neglect common courtesy (why do you have your phone ringing at the loudest setting in a quiet meeting room and then whisper when you answer to say you cannot talk???). I personally would like to add music players like iPods to the list because it is just rude to have your ears plugged while going out to buy food at the groceries and the like. PSPs? I still have mixed feelings about hand-held gaming units…
Anyhow, I can understand all of the above and my thoughts are similar to Cyber Akuma. Though I must add some more of my own thoughts; I find BT users to speak slightly louder than those who place the cell phone beside their ears. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that much more obnoxious.
Custom ringtones? I have a few myself and my thought is that as long as it is tasteful and non-disruptive in public (such as a sound byte from a movie clip), I have no problems with it. But I do not like it when it is a song byte because it surprises me everytime and I am sure that around older people, the sudden ringing of one small part of a song is sure to induce a heart-attack sometime.