Since mostly people have cellular phones which they can travel with and utilize anywhere, it is not rare to come across a person who uses a cellular phone in a train. Thanks to their mobility, we have got a new way to spend our time with the phones. Previously, we could only read books or newspapers, or memorize words for some tests. Like this way, we can spend time usefully by bringing something into trains.
On the other hand, you may have heard about the bad manners of using the phones in trains. I have heard nothing about the bad manners of, for example, reading books or memorizing new words, so using cellular phones may be completely different in its annoyance.
The problems caused by the phones are particular to what are caused by the problems.
The former problem is not unique to cellular phones, but rather than familiar. In trains you can find people chatting loudly without regard to surroundings. However, the latter seems unusual. Actually some researchers argue that the electromagnetic waves have risks of fatal injury. I am going to introduce these reports and discuss the problems.
Please look around the inside of a train. You will probably find a notice saying "Please set your mobile phone to silent mode and refrain from making calls." The conductor also says the same thing, though there are some people chatting with others in the train. The conductor (or Tōkyū Corporation) seems to allow the passengers speaking with their mouths, but to forbid them from speaking with their cellular phones. There may be some special reasons that are caused by the phones.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) confirmed (2002) that cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators must be kept about 22 centimeters away from cellular phones, by investigating influence over such medical equipments caused by the electromagnetic waves from cellular phones. The guide had already been designed by Electromagnetic Compatibility Conference in 1997, and this time MIC inspected it. If there is a person who has a cardiac pacemaker in his/her body in a crowded train, the person may be neighbouring to other passengers. And if one of the passengers has a cellular phone, the cardiac pacemaker in the person's body can be very close to the phone. Cellular phones frequently send electromagnetic waves so as to correspond with micro base stations, even while you don't speak with them. So in crowded trains cellular phones can have a dangerous influence on such medical equipment.
Before all, people who have their individual situations use trains, so it is naturally necessary for all passengers to consider their surroundings and join to improve the environment of the insides of trains. Around the end of the 20th century, I sometimes saw people with their phones speaking loudly in trains, but recently I have rarely seen people speaking like that. Though the manuals of such cellular phones and the conductors repeatedly announce the influence of the phones, and request passengers for the manners with the phones, we often find passengers sending e-mails with their phones. In trains, are we only prohibited from speaking with the phones, but permitted to make and send e-mails with them? The answer is very close to "yes," but until every transport company adopts a common rule today, Tōkyū (and also other transport companies) once worked on improving the manners and the environment among two types of passengers: passengers who would like to use their cellular phones in trains, and passengers who cannot be near the phones for some medical reasons (or who dislike cellular phones).
Tōkyū once carried out "habitat segregation"; passengers chose the cars where any use of cellular phones was forbidden. In odd-numbered cars, passengers could use their phones except for speaking, and in even-numbered cars, passengers must not use their phones. Thanks to the rule, passengers who had pacemakers (or who disliked phones) didn't have to worry about electromagnetic waves, and passengers' consciousness of the manner surely rose.
Why the consciousness rose seems to have been that the rule was clear and easy to understand. Today every transport company says "Please switch off cellular phones [near priority seats]," but you can find a passenger who uses the phone on the priority seat. The expression "near priority seats" seems a little vague, and the two types of passengers coexist in one car, which doesn't have a clear demacration. That decreases the consciousness of the rule.
It is remarkable that coexistence has taken the place of the "habitat segregation" on the manner of cellular phones; however, there are still bad-mannered passengers. All passengers should notice that the "habitat segregation" is not the best way, and everyone has only to pay great care to others. That surely leads "coexistence."
Work cited:
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) (2002) "Dempa no iyou-kiki nadoe-no eikyou-ni kansuru chosa kekka" (Report on the influence on medical equipment caused by electromagnetic waves)
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