Slow internet speed helps India avert fast-net global malaise

There are a few easy solutions to " phubbing" - the 21st-century apogee of bad manners - especially if the setting happens to be India. Since the crime in question is snubbing face-to-face conversations in favour of interactions on the phone, connectivity is the obvious vulnerable point.

India, in that sense, is in the forefront of the anti-phubbing effort, with its consistent effort to prolong the 2G-3G "scam" shenanigans. This has ensured that would-be phone addicts are defeated by the very slowness and ineffectiveness of their hand-held devices.

Indeed, the government-instigated impasse has practically guaranteed that phubbing remains under control in India, and nations worried about this viral disease should take note of this clever campaign.

Where bad connectivity cannot step in to enforce good manners and convivial social interaction, there is always co-option: affected (and offended) people can interact via their gadgets instead of trying to converse using something as non-geeky as their own voices.

That would mean smiles all round: increased revenue for telecom companies, less noise pollution and undivided attention from unrepentant phubbers, that too simultaneously across a variety of platforms. The last resort could be the cigarette packet remedy: make the phone look too scary an object to get addicted to.