What’s Your Cell Phone Ring?

It is taken for granted that everyone has a cell phone (if not 2) in Israel. This little piece of machinery has become part of the norm. You can find kids in grade school totting them, just as easily as elderly people and of course everyone in between. People who forget their cell phones at home often feel lost and unable to function. You see cell phones everywhere: in the gyms, cafes, classrooms, offices, doctor’s offices, movie theaters, ect. There is nowhere that these babies don’t travel. One of the more ironic scenes is to see 2 people sitting at a café together and both talking to other people on their cell phones. Actually, as soon as you sit down at a cafe, you usually take out your phone and put it on the table, just to make sure that you won’t miss a call.

Like any market, this field leaves lots of room for personalization and extra gadgets to make your speaking pleasure that much more enjoyable. The most common effect is a personalized ring tone. At first there were a smattering of tones that the cell phone company would offer and you simply chose one. Now, you can download the latest pop song or create your own “ring” by recording your own voice. Animal sounds are also quite popular; I have heard birds chirping, frogs burping and hens clucking. The best place to hear this musical orchestra is on the bus. Phones are always going off and people have no qualms about talking in full volume to give you another earful, as if the obnoxiously loud ring was not enough. The other day I heard the theme song to the TV show “The O.C.” only to look around and see a male soldier answer the phone.

Better than the songs that you hear while the phone is ringing, some phones (mostly 3rd generation ones) have songs that you hear when you call someone and are waiting for them to pick up. Instead of hearing the usual dulled down beep, you can hear a song. One of my favorites is “I Need a Hero.” I actually didn’t want the person to pick up so that I could listen to more of the song.

While I have not yet conformed and put any of the songs on my phone, I definitely do my far share of talking on it. I try not to be “that girl” who spills her life’s story on the bus or in a cafe, but with a culture that is so cell phone obsessed, it is hard to swim upstream when everyone else is going down.