Advertisement Eighty-two percent of all Americans and 86 percent of all cell users say they’re (at least) occasionally irritated by loud and annoying conversations, a 2006 Pew-AP-AOL survey found.
Reality check: Everyone’s got ’em and everyone hates ’em?
The truth is cell phones have superhero-like powers. And they can be used for both good and bad.
Your cell phone can get you:
KILLED: A 2003 University of Utah study found that drivers talking on a cell phone — even on a hands-free device — take longer to brake, are less attentive and don’t “see” their surroundings. A 2002 Wisconsin State Patrol study found that 1.8 percent of statewide crashes involved at least one driver talking on a cell phone.
CALLED INTO COURT: Don’t show up to a court date? La Crosse County Circuit Judge Ramona Gonzalez will call your cell, on speakerphone, from the bench to “remind” you. Some messages, she said, “are wholly inappropriate.” And sometimes parents answer, unaware their little precious had been arrested. “You get some of the most interesting reactions,” she said with a laugh. “It’s like a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit.”
GROUNDED: Federal law bans the use of cell phones inflight due to safety concerns. Cell phone calls send electronmagnetic waves through the air, and those waves also can interfere with the computers that calculate the plane’s direction, height and just about anything else, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Those same waves also could interfere with hospital equipment, hence the ban there.
DIVORCED: Cell phone call records are regularly subpoenaed in divorces and custody battles, said attorney Pat Heim of O’Flaherty Heim Egan in La Crosse. The records can prove that an ex-spouse was contacting a new flame when with the couple’s kids, proving “the kids aren’t the most important thing in your life.”
RESCUED: Cell phones have been used in numerous cases to call 911 and save lives when people are stranded. Seventy-four percent of Americans with cell phones reported using it in an emergency to find help, according to a 2006 Pew Internet & American Life Project study. But Buck Meeks of Peshtigo, Wis., said he ended up stranded overnight in a Money Creek, Minn., tree Aug. 18, flood waters surging below him. He used his cell phone to call 911, but to no avail — rescuers couldn’t get through the floodwaters. He waited five hours for the flooding to subside.
Hey! What about me?
Not everyone finds cell phones annoying. In fact, Rabbi Simcha Prombaum of La Crosse said he loves his cell phone.
In fact, he forwards calls from both his home phone and business phone to his cell phone.
“That way you can be anywhere and get your phone calls,” he said.
TOP 10 COUNTRIES
According to the CIA World Factbook, there are 2.168 billion cell phone users in the world. Here are the top 10 countries
1. China, 461.1 million
2. United States, 233 million
3. India, 166.1 million
4. Russia, 120 million
5. Japan, 101.7 million
6. Brazil, 99.9 million
7. Germany, 84.3 million
8. Italy, 71.5 million
9. United Kingdom, 69.7 million
10. Indonesia, 63.8 million
