I still think that people yammering away at their phones or bluetooth earpieces while in line to order a coffee (or, even worse, doing so while talking to the cashier) are rude and obnoxious. And that people sitting across a table from each other staring at their smartphones and texting are antisocial and a bit ridiculous.

Basic human decency and social norms haven't changed as much as you think. Walking around talking to a computer strapped to your face, staring at a little screen in the corner of your eye, is profoundly anti-social.

>Talking loudly to oneself in a restaurant/bus, not watching where one is walking, elitist or showoff attitudes, lax attitude toward invasion of privacy, etc.

Are you implying that doing these things with a cellphone is now alright?

No they're saying that we use to (unfairly) attribute poor social behavior to ALL cell phone users. Then we all got cellphones, found out they're neat, no longer felt "left out" or "inferior" and realized hey it's not the cellphone that make people obnoxious it's obnoxious people that make people obnoxious.