The moment a cell phone chirps, it’s attended to no matter what else is going on. Text messages, tweets, and status updates are a steady stream of someone else’s thoughts pushing yours to the background; a constant drip of distractions that take your attention away from whatever is happening at that moment, be it dinner with the family, business, or driving!
I miss the days when ‘the phone’ was at home and people attended to messages after returning home. Nobody freaked out if you didn’t return their call within an hour or two, but try not answering your cell phone now! Don’t get me wrong: I have a cell phone. It is sturdy and reliable and serves me well. It doesn’t text, it doesn’t Facebook, and it doesn’t take precedence over my real life.
It is very uncommon to see anyone without his or her eyes glued to a little screen, totally oblivious to what is going on around them. Can you imagine how often a person engrossed in their cell phone gets short changed or over charged because their attention is not on the business transaction happening at that moment?
Not only is keeping your attention on your cell phone rude, it’s dangerous. I’m sure almost everyone reading this has seen the mall security footage of the woman who falls into a fountain because she was walking along attending to 
her cell phone. Now, imagine the same woman walking to her car at 10PM in a dark parking lot. She would fail to notice any sign of danger and her cell phone will be no help to her.
Observation and attentiveness are the foundation of personal safety. Pay attention to your surroundings. Almost everyone fails right there at step 1. If you aren’t paying attention, all the ninja training in the world is not going to save your skin or help you save anyone else.