Your cell phone is not a body part

This pertains to everyone, not just photographers, but we are pretty guilty of it and take it to extremes.

Your cell phone is not a VITAL function to your day. You CAN forget it at home. You CAN forget to charge it and let it run out of battery power. You CAN shut it completely off for an hour. Or two. Or eight.

The world will not fall apart if you do  not answer your phone every single time.

While we’re talking about this – I’d also like to encourage you to turn off your email notifications on your smart phone. Fine, look at your emails when you want, but turn off that annoying audio signal that chirps every time you have a new email. Between phone rings, voice mail notifications, email notification, twitter chirps, alarms and text message sounds, the smart phones are starting to sound like a deranged musical instrument played by ghosts.

Make a concerted effort to focus on people instead of your phone. I used to attend business lunches a lot before photography, and I was always amazed at how many people would place their cell phones right beside their silverware. If the phone made a sound, they were out of their seats and off to a quiet corner to take the call. If we were lucky. There were others who were not so mannerly and would have their conversation at the table. Of course, all conversation ceased at this point, either because we couldn’t talk over the person on the phone, or we could not continue our discussion without the person that just removed themselves from the table to take a call.

Seriously? Think about this – we have become SO RUDE because of our addictions to our little noise-making electronic devices. Do yourselves and every one else a favor, shut the damn things off and spend some quality time with your family, friends and colleagues.