On August 27, a performance using cell phones took place on the streets of New York. “Geek Ink” describes the event on their Web site: “‘Pedestrian: A Walking Tour for Multiple Voices and Portable Phones’ takes New York audiences on walking tours led by three actresses through the East Village. It allows the participants to ‘eavesdrop’ on cell phone conversations exploring the topic of loss—from lost tempers and lost loves to lost identities. ‘Pedestrian’ explores the public airing of private speech.” (www.pedestrianproject.com)

Around that time, I was beginning to receive responses to my August column in which I had asked readers to describe how cell phones were affecting their lives. One reader’s e-mail included this observation: “I’ve witnessed two ‘cell-breakups,’ as I call them: one, a guy breaking up with his girlfriend, and another, a woman getting dumped by her boyfriend. It was interesting observing both sides of such an event, though two different relationships. It seems the cell has taken once private land-line conversations from offices and homes to public venues. Interesting cultural phenomenon.”

Although I had asked readers to tell me how the cell phone had affected their lives, most of the answers were about other people’s use of cell phones. I was struck by the number of responses that were about cell phones in public places. After some reflection, I realized that the real issue that responders were addressing was, as Geek Ink put it, “the public airing of private speech.”

The use and abuse of public space
How do we define public space? Do we own it collectively, or does each of us have a separate piece? What are the unspoken rules, and how are they formed? Is public space aural as well as physical? The cell-breakup observer was quite benign in his observations of the overheard conversations. But with most respondents, the degree of anger was akin to road rage. We may not pay attention to public space, but as soon as it is violated, we get angry.

“You (the cell phone user) could care less about the other humans that occupy your sphere. And that is just plain selfish.”

“It’s so annoying as I have to hear their dumb conversations if I/they are in a public space, which I am noticing more and more are about dumb random time-passing comments, like ‘What are you wearing?’”

“The worst is standing in line at the grocery store and being forced to listen to someone else’s dumb cell phone conversation. Ugh.”

“Their little public megaphone conversations revolve around such stupid things as ‘the wonderful stuffed pork chop I had last night’ or the pain you’ve been enduring from an infected hangnail.”

The energy of most responses, however, was not so much about the shallowness of the conversations. Instead, the annoyance came from being forced to overhear them.

Why is a cell phone conversation any different from the person-to-person conversation that takes place in, say, the very same restaurant or supermarket or city street? Why are we more peeved when hangnail complaints are delivered through a phone?