This may be a spoof; it may be genuine. Either way, this post at crabbyoldfart.wordpress.com (warning: profanity) is humorous and thought-provoking at the same time. A couple of excerpts:
Back when I was a boy, we didn’t carry phones with us. In my day phones weighed 10 pounds, had rotary dials and were firmly attached to your father’s desk. They were phones of substance, damn it.
If I wanted to listen to inane teen banter I’d go talk to the staff at Old Navy. I sure as Hell don’t need to listen to the idiotic musing of every young person riding the Downtown 34 Express bus.
I am probably up against the boundary of fair use as it is, considering the comparative brevity of the post. Go read the original if you need a chuckle.
To be fair about it, I do have one reason to dislike the prevalence of mobile phone technology: it is now acceptable for phone companies to disconnect phone calls, something that Just Didn’t Happen when making calls between two (analog) landlines. (I have not used VoIP enough to know if disconnects still happen the way they do between mobile phones.) I used to joke about “kitchen phone” and “bathroom phone” with a friend of mine that I spent hours on the phone with several months ago (the carrier I was using at the time had lousy coverage in the area).
In general though, when they work properly, I don’t mind mobile phones one bit. The etiquette books do need to catch up on the rules regarding mobile phone conversations, however.