Interaction Shield

Erving Goffman's "Involvement barriers" or "interaction shields"

theses sorts of social ques are turned on through acritve or inactive shifts in verbal or non verbal cues. In terms of cell phone use, these social cues cite that the person is "engaged" or not in social interaction. when the individual is engaged, he is not bothered by the other "free social radicals" in the social space. (the nearby social space). his

from:

we may expect to find a variety of barriers to perception used as involvement shields, behind which individuals can safely do the kind of things that ordinarily result in negative sanctions . . . involvement can be shielded by blocking perception of either bodily signs of involvement or objects of involvement, or both. [Goffman 1963:39]

Goffman, Erving 1963 Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: Free Press

as cited in:

Being in Two Places at Once.

Here's more to check out:

Clifford, James 1983 On Ethnographic Authority. Representations 1(2):118–146.

1985 The Narrativization of Experience in the Oral Style. Journal of Education 167:9–35. Gibson, Cristina B., and Susan G. Cohen, eds.

Clark, Herbert H., and Susan E. Brennan 1991 Grounding in Communication. In Perspectives in Socially Shared Cognition. L. B. Resnick, J. M. Levine, and S. D. Teasley, eds. Pp. 127–149. Washington: American Psychological Association.