Today's tpic comes from Ramana - Mobile Telephony. A great idea gone conmpletely and utterly mad. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Seriously folks - does everyone really need to be able to reach you whenever they want? 24/7/365??? Really? Do you need the same access? Really?
Texting? Sexting? Nekkid selfies? have we reached the upper limits of moral bankruptcy yet?
Texting - has the art of verbal communication gone missing? Have our thumbs replaced our vocal cords?
How many times have you been at a theater to see a movie and had the experience interrupted by a phone call or text message? Turn the damn thing off!! Tell the other idiots that get a call to turn their damn phones off too!! How often has your waiter or waitress gotten a phone call or text mesage when you were out to eat? How about the cashier at the local grocry/pick a store - any store - considering these days mo9st of those jobs are filled by "kids"?-
Don't get me wrong. There's a time and place for everything but really now - besides inhaling and exhaling is there really much else we need to do 24/7/365??? If Jim Croce had written Operator tof-day would uit be about a guy blowing up his ex girlfriend's phone at all hours? Would the song had the same heart?
I think not.
Why - you may ask - do I sound so negative about mobile telephony? My daughter - well over 30 - spends in excess of 50% of every waking minute on her cellphone. God forbid it becomes fully discharged and she is without it. It is her life. Smartphones??? Who're they kidding? They're huge contribiutors to the dumbing dowen of America.
Now on occasion I do find the videos shot by cellphones interesting. And it is nice to have a camera handy to take snaps at an accident or other newsworthy activity but we are dangerously close to creating an entire generation of paparazzi and that can't be good, can it? Has personal privacy totally left the building? Isn’t government intrusion bad enough for crying out loud.
Is mobile telephony sucking the soul from us?
There was a time, of course, when this was all still ver new.... remember that far back??
Yes dear readers - I realize mobile telephony has a place in today's world. Who needs an iPod when you can use a smartphone for the same thing. GPS? A good smartphone works just as well. Instant information at our fingertips. But really now - would your life be that much worse without mobile telephony?
Scuse me - my cellphone is ringing. Damn - it's all soooo confusing! Oh - and one of my very best friends was a prime mover in the invention and development of mobile phones. He was instrumental in the design of the switching systems that make the things work. He used to call me on the prototypes from Chicago. True story.
In the 'olden days' with fixed landlines, we did not know if someone tried to make contact with us while we were out. On the other hand, unlike today, we did not know if nobody loved us, read: The phones did not ring!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that we are dumbing down. We are becoming robots and increasingly getting to be unable to carry out normal face to face conversations. While the conveniences are there, the obsession with the gadgets is what is galling. There is another peculiar Indian habit of giving a missed call! This is done by those who buy prepaid cards and expect idiots like me to call them back when the missed call appears on the screen. A new terminology "No balance" meaning that in the prepaid card, balance talk time is nil, is all pervasive and thus gives way to text messages which forces one to respond via the same media. NUTS!
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the musical blasts from the past. Car phone was funny.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally with you on this one! I think the technology is great, and I'm glad we have cell phones. But I think they are becoming a social crutch. People don't want to have to interact with people face to face, so they focus on their cell phone, even if they are in the same room with someone who demands their attention. And if the person they are texting was in the same room, chances are they would ignore them and focus on texting someone different.
ReplyDeleteDo you think we have any hope of re-achieving balance? There are times when I wonder if the tribalization being created by continuous connection is where our society is falling apart.
ReplyDeleteAt least we of the LBC tribe are still sane, right?
Fos as long as the current schism is maintained we do not - at least in the LBC we can agree to disagree with some civility
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