Let’s begin with a confession.
I have never had a desire to own a cell phone, much less a smartphone. Still, I have had a cell for awhile. (Prepare to feel disdain. It’s a TracFone. I know, these days that’s like driving a Pinto.)
The phone cost me a full 12 bucks. A year ago I bought 365 service days for $119. I know – only $10 a month. How uncool can you get?
We had to do something when we sold our house over 4 years ago. The executive apartment which we rented had no place to plug in a phone, so we were dragged into the cell phone world. TracFone was the answer: no commitment, pay as you go, keep it simple and cheap.
The SmartPhone Offer
Recently the people with whom I work urged me to take advantage of their provision of a sleek glass and aluminum slab with a provided plan. I resisted. I sensed an impending rise in the sea level of life clutter in my future. One more thing to carry around. One more noise in my world.
Am I techno-phobic? No. A Luddite? No. I have been asked for help on tech issues by people 20 years my junior. An Apple Genius once expressed a fair amount of amazement at the diagnostics I had used on my Mac Pro at home. In turn, his amazement amazed me. And, some technological pieces do make me salivate, especially ones with four wheels, like this one.
This salivation has never happened over a cell phone, just as I have never salivated over the prospect of getting harassed by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes and cell phones share common characteristics:
- Ubiquitous
- Pesky
- Obnoxious
- Irritating
- Unavoidable
Elegant, simple, streamlined technology that just works is desirable. Technologically-exacerbated life clutter is not.
Some folks extol to me the wonders of text messaging (one of the more klunky means of communication of the past 100 years). For those who believe their lives are void of color unless they can spray truncated 140-character missives all day long, I can accommodate them without ever touching a cell. All you need is Google Voice. Without spending a penny I’ve received and responded to text messages via iPad, laptop, or desktop. No money changes hands, and without stopping to pick up another device, I can send out responses to those missives at triple speed using a keyboard that fits human fingers rather than small pencil erasers.
Actually, it’s the cell phone culture that rankles me, more than the technology itself. It plays along with the superficial aspects of American culture in general, contributing to our insatiable demand for instantaneity.
Consider This:
1) Smartphones make people stupid. (Have you ever felt like igniting the “Bonfire of the Inanities”?)
2) Smartphones make people oblivious. Who hasn’t been around the high-powered business traveler who broadcasts to all within a 40-yard perimeter her latest sales conquests, barking directives to a subordinate, or shredding a co-worker’s character in minute detail? She seems to have no idea that 148 people are taking it all in – involuntarily.
One day I was in the local mall. Ahead I spied a young high school girl, engrossed in the tiny screen in her hands. Her thumbs were busy. I was ready to employ an evasive maneuver. Never taking her eyes or thumbs of the Object of her Adoration, she gracefully eased to the right at the last moment. We passed without eye contact. She’s not alone, as you can see here.
3) Smartphones cause isolation. I was counseled by someone that when I obtain my phone, I should not answer it, but just return calls. From my experience people take that to heart! So, the very means of connection empowers people to avoid being connected.
An ongoing mystery to me is the phenomenon of two or more individuals at a restaurant table, spaced of into their tiny screens, communicating with people who are not there and ignoring the warm humans right next to them.
4) Smartphones make people dangerous. Most of us have heard of car crashes related to cell use.
5) Smartphones make people more self-centered and demanding. We feel so entitled to instant everything, and cell phones exacerbate that demand for immediate response. “Didn’t you get my text??”
6) Smartphones likely will precipitate a massive health problem in the next couple of decades, not to speak of early dementia.
‘I am grateful to and care about the people who think I need the latest glass and aluminum slab with the logo of partially eaten fruit. I admire that company’s products, and enjoy some aspects of having their cell phone. The first advantage is that I can retire the Tracfone and save $10 a month. Nice. Another is I can dictate text messages, for those who must have that means of communication.
Will I wear the device on my hip? No.
Will I carry it in my pocket? No.
Will it be glued to my ear? No.
Finally, what do you think are the first features I learned on the new shiny device? They were: location of the off button and “Do Not Disturb” switch.
How have you done in the battle to rule the phone rather than letting it rule you?
[Images via Daniel Kulinski-Flickr & OldBug]
tpaulding says
If you don’t want to use a phone. That is up to you and I have no problem with your decision. I respect that.
I do have issues with your list of reasons though. Please read these as quick-while-at-work responses and they aren’t inteded to be rude, short, cold, or mean-spirited. Just speedily written.
1. Some people are stupid and trivial, so they do stupid and trivial things with their smartphones. It isn’t the phone’s fault.
2. Some people are oblivious. Smart phones give them more opportunity to be that way around us. It used to be pay phones in public.
3. Some people like to isolate themselves and/or are easily distracted. Smartphones make it very easy for them to isolate themselves in otherwise crowded places. Don’t’ blame the phone. It used to be magazines and newspapers.
4. Some people are dangerous when they use their smartphones at bad times. It is THEIR bad judgement that is dangerous. Not the smartphone. Kind of like drinking and driving. Don’t blame the beer.
5. Smartphones just gratify the people that have no patience and are self-centered. Again, not the phone’s fault.
6. Massive health problems… who knows? You may be right there!
All in all, I just feel that you have blamed the phone largely for a bunch or PEOPLE problems that manifest in a phone. If a person isn’t those things you listed, then the phone won’t make them that way. I think the real take away from this is that friends, co-workers, and family need to educate/counsel the offenders in their lives.
Ken Rosentrater says
You are right, sir! I think I probably overstated things to make a point.
However!
I have seen people who otherwise are intelligent, rational, polite, considerate and thoughtful who let these qualities degrade when the phone is in their hand. Maybe “enable” would be a better word than “make”. Maybe the effect is that the technology reduces inhibitions. There are indicators of addictive behavior.
Example: in a meeting of leaders a few years ago, 5 of 7 men left the meeting, as a fellow member of the group was making a presentation. They didn’t get up and walk out the door. They are all to polite to do that. But they effectively did the same thing, enabled by their electronic devices. I felt badly for the man who was trying to make his point, and everyone checked out except me – the “unfortunate” one who at that time didn’t possess a cell phone.
Example: normally people don’t get up from their couch or chair while someone is having a conversation with them and go to another part of the house. However, when a smartphone interrupts with its little text message sound, the same persons will do exactly that, leaving the person in the other half of the conversation talking to himself.
So, yes, the character quality deficiencies may be there already, but the technology seems to lower the bar to make it easier to do things we’d never do without the thing in our hand or in the next room, calling for our instant attention.
I also think the level of our expectations have been raised. We are able to get things more instantaneously; therefore we are more quick to demand instant response. Because we can, we do. That’s not limited to smartphones. Amazon – the whole online ordering scenario – has also fed that tendency to self-centered demandingness!
Raoul Snyman says
I have seen chartered accountants and architects who otherwise are intelligent, rational, polite, considerate and thoughtful who let these qualities degrade when they are in front of a computer.
Ever seen that before?
Ken Rosentrater says
As in so focused on the screen they ignore you? Or, feel rudely interrupted if you have a question for them?
I haven’t seen it as much, but I am sure it happens.
Thanks for writing in!
Ken
Paul Clifford (@PaulAlanClif) says
Technology (other than nuclear radiation, maybe) doesn’t do any of the things you listed. It might facilitate them, but the person, the rational agent, is the cause, not the inanimate object.
Consider this:
1. Books make people stupid. (If you read and believe Mein Kampf, you’ll be stupider than when you picked it up).
2. Books make people oblivious. People can easily walk down the street with a book and walk into things.
3. Books cause isolation. My 11 year-old daughter will lock herself into her room for hours with a book.
4. Books make people dangerous. My father told a story of a guy he know who would keep a book open on the steering wheel while driving. Obviously this is a problem.
5. Books make people self-centered and demanding. Have you ever interrupted a reader in the midst of the “good part” of a horror or mystery book? Yep. self-centered.
6. Books will likely precipitate a massive health crisis in the next few decades. I already have been a victim of reduced vision from eyestrain from reading. Surely massive blindness is next.
Of course I’m kidding. Books aren’t the problem people are as they are with cell phones.
Ken Rosentrater says
As I stated in reply to the first comment above, you also are correct in what you say. It’s the person, ultimately. That is why I am calling for people to take charge of their little tyrant cell phones!
However, I think a case could be made that while a book is inanimate, a smartphone is not. It’s not human, but certainly isn’t inanimate! I have never had a book demand anything of me, or intrude on a conversation, or call to me while in the shower, or call to me while I am driving.
I also think a case could be made that all the things you list are possible with a book, but it is rare to hear of them.
On the other hand, the behaviors with cell phones have proliferated and probably everyone has a story. There’s a difference in there somewhere!
The bottom line: use technology and don’t let it use you.
Thanks for the comments.
Pushpa Koneri says
Hi Ken,
I enjoyed reading your article. These days even I am feeling the peer pressure to buy an APPLE product or SAMSUNG. My Blackberry Curve is not even considered a Smart phone by some of my friends! LOL!
I agree that it’s not Phone’s fault but its always the person; however people can’t resist and involuntarily exhibit those SIX qualities you mentioned in your article. I can’t agree more on the 5th point you talked about. “more self-centered and demanding”
Ken Rosentrater says
Thank you for writing Pushar,
Yes, I know Blackberries do not get the respect they used to get. Part of the culture that we are dealing with has to do with always creating new things that make us dislike what already have, and which was fine until yesterday, when the new thing came on the market.
Then, the people around you and your friends tend to look at themselves approvingly for getting the latest thing, and hope that you notice.