This evening, a fidgety guy was standing next to me on the train. A young guy, looked like a student. He had 3 keitais which he pulled out in turns from 3 different pockets. They were all clamshell types so everytime he pulled one out there was that click sound as he opened the phone. He took a phone out, click, typed something and closed it, click, put it away and pulled out another one, click, type, click, next keitai. Over and over non-stop. I could feel a need to bitchslap him swelling up in me. I had to move to a different spot on the train before I turned into the incredible hulk and crushed him.
First off, why did he need 3 keitais and what was he checking? We were on the subway, no signals moron. While this type of keitai behavior might be extreme, there is a growing number of people in this world who cannot stop fidgeting with their mobile phones. In a meeting the other day a guy kept opening and closing his handset constantly. It was very annoying, almost as much as people who click their pens. I especially find it rude when people check their phones or proceed to type an sms or email while I’m having a conversation with them. Then they will say something like “uh huh, yeah, I’m listening..go on..” but really they’re not listening. I can forgive people who get a call and at least say excuse me, I’m sorry or something but most people are just too ignorant. Or could it be that they lack something in their diet that’s making them fidgety.
Anyways, that’s enough rant for tonight. A couple of things I would like to report. First, I now have 11 people in my AGLOCO network! Thanks to you guys (and girls) I’m in the top 18.05%!! whatever that means. I need to get at least 1000 people so I can quit my job and get away from all those fidgety pen-clicking people and have peace of mind. So click here to join. Also, I’ve created an Amazon aStore which you can get to from the linkbar at the top right of every page. It’s books and stuff about Japan. If you purchase something from my store I will project thoughts of prosperity and good fortune to you.
Uh-huh that was an otaku, for sure.
If someone pecked at their phone while I was attempting to have a conversation with them, I’d smile nicely and say that I could see they were busy and would pick up the conversation with them when they were finished with their business on their phones. I’d then turn away and attend to something of my own (read something, write something, whatever) until that person made an effort to actively address me.
I think people who do such things subscribe to a different mindset of what is acceptable and don’t mean to be rude. It’s probably the sort of behavior that people who are a part of the cell phone “culture” approve of amongst themselves. That doesn’t mean you have to put up with it though.
All in all, it’s a really bad thing to need that level of constant distraction and points back to cultures that consistently overstimulate people from infancy to adulthood such that we think we’re bored or inefficient if we’re not multi-tasking.
cool! how much money more or less do you get for each person that joins through you?
I joined AGLOCO using the link you provided on your post…I assume thats how I join your group? If not somebody please enlighten me. By the way, I’ve read your blog for a good long while but for some reason or another always have forgotten to make a comment. Sorry! I will make an active effort to do so in the future. I certainly do enjoy reading everything you post though. Please don’t stop any time soon…it’s super great.
a bit off topic but…
i saw softbank just released a bunch of new models, one of which is a QWERTY Nokia… my question is: does the nihon no keitai market not include a lot of QWERTY phones like Blackberry, Treo, Q, etc…?
thanks,
jonas
Saff, he wasn’t so much an otaku. More like a stoner.
Shari, I agree with you. It really doesn’t bother me that much. I was just being overly dramatic as usual.
kirai, I’m not really sure of the details. We’ll know once it begins.
Nitsua, thanks for joining! I’m glad you like the blog!
Jonas, yeah I saw that phone too. Blackberrys have been rolled out to corporate users here and all the other well-known smart phones don’t exist in Japan. This is because all phones in Japan have internet email, mobile web access, calendar, address book etc. so there’s no need for smartphones. The majority of Japanese keitais are already “smarter” than smartphones in other countries. They do have some Japanese smart phones like the Willcom ones but they have a very small user base, mostly otaku.