There has been considerable debate in the Bangkok social media concerning the merits of tweeting on the phone while sitting in a cinema. While this hardly ranks as the most important issue facing the kingdom in these demanding times, it does raise the sensitive problem of cinema etiquette.
Apparently browsing through the mobile and tweeting in cinemas during a film is quite common these days. "Everybody does it," said one tweeter, explaining that some films are "boring" so what else are they expected to do? Perhaps they should make a better choice about the films they go and see. Believe it or not, there was a time when people actually went to the movies to watch the movie, not play with their precious phones. One good thing about the texting however, is you don't get so many idiots talking on the phones in cinemas.
Collision course
Anyone in Bangkok must have experienced being bumped into by someone not looking where they are going because they are totally engrossed in their smartphone. Apologies are not usually forthcoming either. In fact you are more likely to receive a scowl for rudely interrupting whatever it is they find so absorbing on that little screen. This obsession with texting while walking is almost becoming an addiction.
I've witnessed people preoccupied with their phones colliding into other people doing exactly the same thing, prompting assorted glares. It's a bit like the dodgems. However, it might just serve as a reminder that most people struggle to focus on two different things at once.
There's nothing wrong in playing with a phone and it certainly helps pass the time when there's nothing else to do. But there's a time and a place. How many occasions have you seen people with their eyes fixed on their phone at the top of escalators, getting on and off trains and planes, and most dangerously, while crossing the road?
Just a distraction
The addiction to smartphones has sparked a new term in the English language, "distracted walking". You would have thought that the streets of Bangkok had enough distractions for a pedestrian without compounding the problem by having your head buried in the phone. Apparently the traditional pavement dangers of plunging down potholes, tripping over vendors or being wiped out by a rogue motorcycle are not a big enough challenge for some, unless some concentrated texting is involved.
Maybe those texting without due care and attention should be issued with L-plates, which they must wear until they have passed a test proving they can walk and text without crashing into fellow pedestrians.
Taking a dip
Tales abound of pedestrians absorbed in their phones, falling into ditches, tripping over park benches, slipping off railway platforms, hurtling down stairs and even getting tangled up in dog leashes. One particular location prone to such mishaps is waterfront piers.
Last December, a Taiwanese lady in Australia simply walked off the end of a Melbourne pier and tumbled into the sea while engrossed in her Facebook page. The incident, at St Kilda Pier in Port Phillip Bay, was spotted by an onlooker and the woman was hauled out of the sea 20 minutes later, still clutching her precious phone.
Another pier incident occurred in Michigan when a woman in St Joseph fell into Lake Michigan while texting someone as she walked along a pier blissfully unaware she was about to take an unscheduled dip. Fortunately she was fished out by her husband.
Mishaps are not confined to the outdoors. In a celebrated incident which made it on YouTube, a woman walking in a Pennsylvania shopping mall, was so engrossed in her phone she fell head first into a fountain. She ended up suing the mall.
Philadelphia freedom
Accidents caused by "distracted walking" got so bad in Philadelphia a couple of years ago the mayor announced in a video the world's first pedestrian lane designed for texting addicts. Citizens not using smartphones were forbidden from using the lane.
They even painted lines on the pavement. This initiative was given a lot of publicity by local newspapers on April 1, 2012. It turned out to be the mayor's little April Fool's joke, although many thought it was for real. The mayor said that it did its job in creating an awareness of irresponsible texting.
When silence is not golden
It is quite common in Bangkok these days to see a couple sit down at a restaurant table and spend the whole meal engrossed in their respective phones, not having any conversation whatsoever. On a similar theme, a reader recently emailed the following.
"When I took the train to Bangkok, for years I would hear students chatting, laughing, calling to each other. Today the trains are silent. Everyone is engrossed in smartphones, tablets and texting."
What goes up …
Hands up anyone who believes that the 24-storey newly built hotel on Ruamrudee will actually be torn down within 60 days as ordered by the court. It could happen, but don't hold your breath. The last major building to receive such an order was the New World Department Store in Bang Lamphu.
That was back in the 1990s and they are still awaiting the demolition to commence, although by all accounts the structure is falling to bits of its own accord. I know the feeling well.
Contact PostScript via email at oldcrutch@hotmail.com.