Shall we jam?

The New York Times has an excellent little article on how some people in the U.S. have started using cell phone jammers, which really made me laugh a little.

As far as I know the devices are illegal in Canada, just like they are in the U.S., but the idea of being able to flick off an annoying cell phone user is too brilliant.

As an example, the piece talks about a disgruntled commuter using a jamming device to stop a girl from babbling into her phone.

But this choice paragraph was what really made me smile:

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.”

The funny thing is though that, while you shouldn’t have to resort to this, there’s an easier solution for the subway, busses or streetcars of Toronto. They’re called headphones, and you hook them up to your MP3 player of choice and turn them on.

I ride public transit a couple of times a day and I don’t hear a thing around me. I don’t even turn them up loud, and they’re not noise-cancelling. Just pick up the ear bud models and pop ’em in. Voila.

Still – I won’t deny it. Cell phone jammer = best idea ever.