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The polite cell user.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

Chatty college students and texting tweens aren't the only ones misusing their cell phones, says Mindy Lockard, a Eugene etiquette consultant who publishes the Web site Manner of the Month (www.mannerofthemonth.com).

"I don't want to be the person that's telling people what they can and can't do," Lockard explains. "But there's bad (cell phone) behavior across the board, and it's important for adults to be modeling good behavior."

Cell phone etiquette is one of those subjects almost everyone has an opinion on.

A 2000 story in the online technology journal InfoWorld.com titled "The Ten Commandments of cell phone usage" (No. 10: "Thou shalt not slam thy cell phone down on a restaurant table just in case it rings") drew so many comments that the editors revised the list last year and printed hundreds of reader suggestions: "If thou leavest thy phone upon thy desk in thine absence, please makest thou certain to silence its ringer."

But if we're all in agreement that people's cell phone manners need improving, why do we continue to misbehave?

Experts such as Lockard say technological change leads to social change, and often there is a lag between the two. Nobody ever showed...

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