Is It Just Me?

I'm really starting to detest "crackberries."  Call me old-fashioned, but when I'm in the company of someone else, I expect their attention.  It's annoying to me to be having a meal in a restaurant with someone and have them pull out their phone to check email.  Even brief phone calls I can understand.  But email isn't urgent.  I think someone checking email in a social setting is the equivalent of a man spotting an attractive woman while on a date.  The other woman may only attract his attention for a brief moment, but his date knows it and the damage is done.  


Years ago I felt the same way about call waiting.  I had a friend who was one of the first people I knew to get that option - and it came without caller ID so you wouldn't know who was calling.  So, if I was on the phone with her and another call came in, she would put me on hold to get it.  And then she would usually tell me she had to go and that she would call me back.  She would never ignore the beep.  Another comparable situation is being waited on in a store.  The phone rings, then the sales clerk answers it and proceeds to wait on the person on the phone.  In all these scenarios, the message is you are the least important person in the triangle. 


Often, when someone pulls out their phone to check emails, I think how rude it would be for me to pull out my ipod or (if I had one) my eReader, or even just a book.  Really, how often is email urgent?


Parents often complain about children playing handheld games or teenagers texting while in family settings.  But how is this any different than checking (and sometimes responding to) email?  Again, the person using the electronic devise is putting it over the relationship at hand.


Maybe it's just me, but I think it's yet another sign that we're losing our civility.