People enjoy their phones or they wouldn’t use them. The thing is, Americans have this “judgey” urge to clamp down on anything that people too obviously enjoy. People are enjoying themselves IN PUBLIC(!) and we can’t have that. It might lead to unauthorized giggling. Or something.

Believe it or not prune-faced guardians of public morals used to bitch about people reading newspapers and magazines in public. They had the same reaction when people started using the telephone to just socialize instead of saving it for sober messages. And then people spent way too much time at the movies! Don’t get me started about the lazy indulgence of watching television.

The phrase “mind your own business” leaps to mind. So does another phrase that is anatomically impossible.