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The Scourge of Accidental Dialing

The Scourge of Accidental DialingChances are it's happened to you: you've either received a call from someone who didn't mean to call you, or your phone went ahead and decided to call someone on its own, right from the inside of your pocket.

An article in the Wall Street Journal investigates this new epidemic of the cell phone age, which can have implications far more severe than an annoying dead air voice mail.

For example, in the past the FCC has had to warn the public about accidental phone calls tying up 911 operators who must sit there trying to determine if the caller is an old woman in need of medical assistance, or some guy in his car doing his best to sing along with 'Roxanne.'

But it's our personal relationships with others that can truly take a beating at the hands of accidental dialing, and the WSJ article has a few good yarns about folks talking about people behind their backs, and mistakenly leaving their conversations on the voice mails of the very people they're talking about.

You know the feeling: You get a voice mail from a friend or colleague that they clearly didn't intend to make. You hear them talking in the background, but can only make out a few words or phrases here and there. Suddenly, it's like you're an FBI agent listening to mafia wiretaps. You sit there listening, hoping to hear something juicy or incriminating ... something you can use later. Or worse, you look at your call history and realize your phone made a 10-minute call to a contact last night. Now you're like someone who just committed murder. You mentally retrace all of your conversations from the night before wondering if you said something that's going to get you into trouble. Panic sets in. What the hell did I say? Should I call this person now and just pretend like everything is normal?

What's the solution -- stop talking about people behind their backs? Don't be ridiculous. Learn to use your phone's keyguard. Though different from phone to phone, the keyguard is simply a combination of keys that must be pressed before your phone can dial phone numbers. Learn it. Use it.

Got a funny/mortifying tale of accidental dialing? Share it with us in the comments section below.



From The Wall Street Journal

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Tags: accidental dialing, AccidentalDialing, Cell phones, CellPhones

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