Cell phone pollution

I love riding the CTA. It allows me to connect with the zietgeist of Chicago.

Last night I was commuting late after a social dinner. Sitting at the bus stop with some light reading: Marilyn Strathern's The Gender and the Gift. [This is sarcasm. It's one of the densest books in the discipline, no joke.]

Some guy, mid forties, comes up to the bus stop. It's dark, we're the only people there. He paces around, watching for the bus, glancing at his cell phone. We wait for half an hour in the silence. Just me, him, and Marilyn.

The bus comes. I get on first and sit down. There are lots of seats. Him? He slides in directly behind me, calls someone, and proceeds to start a chatty inane conversation right in my ear. Because obviously after a half hour he couldn't be expected to know I was reading, or have made the call already.

What is it about cell phones that makes people so blissfully unaware of their surroundings, both physical and social? Marilyn? Anyone?