Back to public blogging after a month off--I'd blame it on grading, but I've found virtually every creative way around that. Most of my blogging has been sophomoric venting on my other, personal blog(s) that I have set to private.
What, you might ask, brings me back to Musement Park?
CELL PHONES, or more accurately, mobile phones.
What better to muse over than what it might be that's so damn important?
I spent over 40 years of my life without an electronic leash. I will admit, I went through phases and fads, from the CB radio in my Grand Prix to those mall-walker walkie-talkies...in fact, my first mobile communication device was a walkie talkie on the farm, a shoebox-sized thing that we would use to relay the progress of irrigation from the tail to the head of the furrow.
However, I have never been so into my mobile phone that I've, say, had a car wreck, walked into the wrong classroom by mistake, etc. In just the last year I've witnessed some very bizarre mobile phone behavior that bears mention here. Muse over this: What conversation could be so compelling that a girl could go into the men's room, complete her whole transaction there, talking all-the-while, and not even notice she was in the wrong place until she was on her way out? What urgent news must be causing these student's phones to ring throughout a 50 minute class period? What would be so very important to a student that they would risk the potential humiliation and public ridicule I might subject them to for using their mobile device to text or talk during my class? How connected does one need to be?
These people are not working on the stock exchange. They are not (usually) landing big contracts or drug deals. I don't really think any of them are in such great demand for their wit or wisdom...
...and isn't it unhealthy, and just a bit creepy, to be so very up the ass or in the ear of your friends and family? Sometimes a little distance is a good thing. Absence can make the heart grow fonder, you know. I am not suggesting anything outrageous, just that a person might conduct their business for the span of a bowel movement without being needed or needy. It would be nice (and I think sane) to be able to survive 50 minutes or even a 3 hr class block without being 'in touch' with whomever is on the other end of the connection.
What ever happened to paying for the air time? That would solve this whole problem, by damn, and it would make the mobile providers RICH, too. Maybe I'm just old school, but I wish we could return to those times when a call had to be precious, or at least a person had to mince and measure every minute.
Recently a young woman was sitting in the hall at work (at this college o'mine) speaking on her phone with her significant other. The discussion had become heated. In just the length of time I passed her, I heard her saying, "Okay, then. If that's what you need, I'll just cut [out of class] and come hump [editor's euphemism] you. 'That make you happy?" Now, to me, this would be a rather private conversation, but she was shouting it out in a public hallway with no mind to anyone overhearing her. This is not the only instance of such content I've heard in passing. (Mind you, I am not even TRYING to eavesdrop, one of my favorite hobbies...these folks are just laying it out there for all the world to hear.)
I think, somehow, people think their conversations are self-contained in little bubbles around their heads. They seem to really think no one other than the intended party is listening (or can even hear). I cannot explain this thinking, but it seems to prevail.
Don't they realize that not only are those in their immediate surroundings hearing their end of the call, but also the entire conversation is likely monitored by our friendly Big Brothers of the Patriot Act ilk? One false slip of the tongue, one tripped up "I got bombed" to sound like "I got bombs" and then where would our little cell phone conversationalist be? It is, sadly, a creepy world when our calls can be monitored electronically as well as simply overheard.
I have read recently of some paint with metal fibers that can thwart any mobile phone's signal. I would like to coat every classroom, office, hallway...hell, the world...with this stuff.
Mobile phones are rumored to cause cancer, too!
Oh, and do not get me started on the hands-free 'bluetooth' devices!
Rant out.
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2 comments:
I read your blog (finally) and must say that I didn't realize how strongly you feel about these phones. Is that why you never have yours with you! Not everyone who has cell/mobile phones takes it to these extremes, but these are some extremes - which I know to be true, just extreme. I don't know about coating the world with the paint, but the classrooms I could live with! :)
There are days when I'm still sad to say I own a cell. I know a parent that insisted her children have them because two of the girls (both in middle school) would need them for their safety walking a half mile in a middle-class good neighborhood at 3pm.
I do not understand teens texting the person next to them while at a sleepover attended only by 3-4 friends.
Paying for minutes and texts is certainly a reasonable solution.
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