"My students created a questionnaire on cell phone use," says Koppel. Not only did the research show that Philadelphians run late — a lot — (they call ahead to announce they'll be late) but being able to chat any time/all the time naturally changes the way we interact. "A lot of people admitted, 'My cell phone alienates me,'" he says, "and now, you have an extraordinary way of insulting everyone around you."

My motivations for using a cell phone are far more selfish: I just want to be able to hear who's calling me on my Moto without having to duck down Juniper Street. That's why CellZone got my attention. It's a sound-proof booth designed just for cell phone users to keep their breakup calls, booty calls and lying-to-the-boss-about-being-sick calls to themselves. Anthony Ferranti, vice president and founder of CellZone, came up with the concept while having dinner with his mother-in-law at a noisy restaurant.

But when I asked local folks whether they would ever step into a soundproof booth to a make private cell phone calls, most friends, at first puzzled, digressed into seedy scenarios about quickies, sleeping chambers and the big question: Why would anyone with the freedom to talk anywhere want be stuck in Superman's changing room?

Still, as more cell phone users become frantic about being on the horn, could people start to value a new kind of privacy, one that affords them the "luxury" of not having the bank teller, the gas station attendant or the bartender hear their all-too-common, one-sided diatribes? That's what Koppel and his sociology students wanted to find out. "We scripted a breakup," says Koppel. It was an ugly, nasty, name-calling, tear-your-heart-out breakup at a coffeehouse in University City. The catch: One of the breakups was wireless. Koppel says while most people tried to ignore the in-person breakup, most everyone got a charge out of the phone call. "If a couple is having an intimate conversation, we know on some level that this is a private moment and we should look away," says Koppel. "But if someone is having the same conversation on a cell phone, we listen in." And they did. In fact, they not only listened in, they held their own cell phones up to the action, they texted the dialogue to friends and they video-recorded the events to likely post on YouTube.com later. Koppel and his students proved that even though we may not think so, people are, indeed, listening in on our cell phone conversations, and the more dramatic, annoying or intoxicated, the better. And it's our own fault.

Koppel says we've gotten used to doing plenty of things on our cell phones, like using the restroom, answering during sex and driving erratically while gossiping and ordering takeout on the way home. The more wireless feats we achieve, it seems, the further we go toward subjecting everyone around us to our very bad phone habits. Koppel says we've gotten quite used to saying just about anything, anywhere. So much for privacy.

Some people are striking back, however — like TLA Video, where every branch features a reminder at the cash register: For the customers behind you, for the staff in front of you, please refrain from using your cell phone at the counter. "I'm resigned to cell-phonitis," says Kennie Bowen, manager of TLA on Fourth Street, "but won't wait on someone when they're blithering away inconsiderately at the counter, holding up the line."

The folks behind CellZone hope more people agree, but some Philadelphians say they'd never step into a cell phone booth to make a call. Salvatore Patrone, 36, says, "I certainly wouldn't pay to use one. And frankly, there's already enough crap junking up the sidewalks."

Brian Wiginton, senior designer at Buell Kratzer Powell, an architecture firm in Center City, is not convinced that so many of us, used to yammering on our phones, are likely to change the way we chat. "There are plenty of times I'd rather not shout over the 21 bus on Walnut Street," he says. "But it seems kind of silly to pepper the city with boxes that will be empty 85 percent of the time."

The CellZone prototype, being shopped around to trade shows, offers better acoustics, light, ventilation and handicap access than your average city street or noisy bar. "We're also adding a little seat and cup holder," says Ferranti, who's targeting the National Restaurant Association and American Library Association. And while Philadelphia isn't yet on CellZone's radar, Ferranti says cold weather and privacy are two reasons a cell phone booth may be coming to a city near you. Other businesses, like Brooklyn Cafe in Sandy Springs, Ga., are using alternatives like gutted English telephone booths to keep the peace. And the Biltmore Room in Manhattan built a posh respite for its cell phone users this year.

"If it's something that makes us consider the space between the more private activity inside of buildings and the free-for-all public space of the street," says Wiginton, "it will likely yield some very thoughtful, critical public architecture. We could just as easily end up with our sidewalks littered with plastic boxes covered in advertisements like upturned race cars, which would be disappointing."

(n_mcdonald@citypaper.net)