Recently, pedestrians and motorists witnessed a near-miss accident in Chicago's downtown Loop. An SUV, its driver blathering into a phone while trying to turn right, almost mowed down a pedestrian also blathering into a cell phone while trying to cross the street. Screams were heard, tires squealed, horns sounded, fists shook, epithets flew"but no one hung up. "Do you know what a &%$@ idiot just did to me???" both the driver and pedestrian were apparently saying into their cells without missing a beat.
Its not just motor and pedestrian traffic that's impacted, pun intended, by cells. Even doctors report having to wait to examine a patient while he or she says something urgent into a cell phone like "did you look on the bottom right shelf next to the bath towels?" Raise your hand if you've competed for attention in a business meeting with a one inch text screen or with the "immediacy" of a cell phone caller on a lunch and dinner date.
Moms--imagine your kids going AWOL from breakfast until dinner with no "electronic apron string" to geoposition them. Imagine no 3 PM school's-out-I'm-going-to-Melissa's phone call or roommate/finals/sore throat report from the college dorm. How did our mothers do it?
Thanks to cells, everyone is a communication substation transponding, relaying and documenting their spatial temporal verite to the next substation. Even the news succumbs to the I-perceive-you-perceiving-me vacuity.
Former Tribune columnist Bob Green says when his Southwest plane had an inflight navigation emergency in 2005 and had to return to Midway airport, the surprises had just begun.
"We landed, to the audible relief of those on board, pulled up to the gate, and--before the captain could tell us what had gone wrong--four people entered through a jetway. One held a television camera; another began handing out release-permission forms," writes Greene in the New York Times. They were from a reality TV show.
The "what's-it-like-to-almost-die" coverage didn't fly with the TV crew--not enough panic; no missed wedding days huffed the producer--but passengers loved the electronic documentation of their ordeal because it made the moment "realer," says Greene.
Cell phones are called the new cigarette because of their ubiquity and addiction, judging from all the chain callers and cell phone plumbing accidents. (Who remembers quiet stalls in public washrooms?)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
