Cellphones and Ice

For the past week I have been visiting my family back in West Allis. This has also led to my being a taxi for my sister upon her finishing the school day at her high school. Yesterday, she was running extremely, extremely late so it afforded me a great opportunity to observe the behavior of the students waiting for a ride and the family members waiting to pick them up.

Almost every student who stood waiting for a ride spent the majority of the time ignoring the other students and talking on a cell phone. There were a grand total of three students who did not talk on a cell phone while waiting, and one of them was with a student who did, and while they were clearly walking together and waiting together his friend and or sibling ignored him the whole time even waiving off the one question he asked brushing him away to talk on the phone more.

I heard absolutely no verbal communication as I had to wait in my car, but the nonverbal communication spoke volumes. Each student stood in their own little niche of the pavement about six to four feet apart, if anyone were to move even slightly from their designated/chosen spot the others would freeze a little and glare until the student in question returned to approximately where they were standing before. Those who had cellphones, had very closed posture and stance. For example this almost six foot tall brunet girl stood with one hand on the phone the other wrapped around her waist like she was protecting herself and her feet were pressed to the ground as if she expected to make a dash for it at any moment.

Going to the two other students who did not have cell phones: these two were clearly friends or at least desperate for conversation and talked animatedly. They made eye contact, they gestured with their arms and they stood closer, but with a railing in between them. They stayed a bout three feet apart, with a railing in between them, and when a student with a cellphone walked through their conversation it ended.

The rules for the students clearly were to guard yourself form each other: even the friends were separated by a reiling and when someone came to close to their conversation they seemed to decide that it was too risky to continue. Another rule clearly seemed to be almost everyone wanted to be left themselves as the harsh reactions to moving out of ones designated space seems to suggest. A third rule seemed to be that phone conversations took precedence over the people actually present, as evidenced by the boys walking together where one was ignored over the phone conversation.

It was clear that if someone were to break this isolation they would be reacted to very unfavorably. For example if someone were to tap any of these kids on the shoulder it would not be surprising to see that person getting punched or at the very least recoiled away from. Even the waiting family extended this attitude. No one left their vehicle to wait for their student and the only person who left when the student arrived was a parent helping to push a wheelchair into a van, and they were glared at by all around. This was not a friendly environment.

Trying to communicate in this setting would be a challenge even if you knew the rules. The rules were essentially do not communicate unless it is to someone on the other end of a phone. Asking a question, or simply arriving were met with suspicion and hostility.

If you had to communicate in a hostel environment, how wold you go about it?

What factors do you believe may have led to creating such a hostel environment?