Women will rummage through their purses to see if it's theirs. Men will quickly glance at their waistbands to see if their phone has sprung to life. The unchosen will look disappointed. There's no escaping it. But it's not just cell phones.
Sound is everywhere.
We have radios in our cars, portable CD players for everywhere else. Once, in a college writing class, my professor gave us an interesting assignment. We were to spend 15 minutes in a quiet place, writing about it while we were there. Today, that assignment might not work as well. Few of us stop making noise long enough to realize the sounds that are already there.