A Cell Phone? Never For Me
Someday soon, I may be the last man without a cell phone. To those who see cell phones as progress, I say: "they aggravate noise pollution and threaten our solitude. The central idea of cell phones is that you should be connected to almost everyone and everything at all times. The trouble is that cell phones assault your peace of mind no matter what you do." But as with other triumphs of the mass market, they've reached a point when people forget what it was like before cell phones existed. No one remembers life before cars, TVs, air conditioners, jets, credit cards, microwave ovens and A.T.M cards. So, too, now with cell phones, anyone without one will soon be classified as a crank or a member of the (deep) underclass. Of course, cell phones have productive uses. For those constantly on the road (salesmen, real-estate agents, repair technicians, some managers and reporters) they're a godsend. The same is true for critical workers (doctors, oil-rig, fire-fighters) needed at a moment's notice. Otherwise benefits seem murky. They make driving more dangerous. Then, there's sheer nuisance. Private conversations have gone public. We've all been subjected to someone else's sales meeting, dinner reservation, family feud and dating problems. A recent poll asked which invention people hated most but couldn't live without. Cell phones won, chosen by 30 percent of respondents. They are obviously an irresistible force, but I vow to resist just as I've resisted A.T.M cards, laptops and digital cameras. I agree increasingly with the late poet Ogden Nash, who wrote: "Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long."
Newsweek, August 23, 2004
Someday soon, I may be the last man without a cell phone. To those who see cell phones as progress, I say: "they aggravate noise pollution and threaten our solitude. The central idea of cell phones is that you should be connected to almost everyone and everything at all times. The trouble is that cell phones assault your peace of mind no matter what you do." But as with other triumphs of the mass market, they've reached a point when people forget what it was like before cell phones existed. No one remembers life before cars, TVs, air conditioners, jets, credit cards, microwave ovens and A.T.M cards. So, too, now with cell phones, anyone without one will soon be classified as a crank or a member of the (deep) underclass. Of course, cell phones have productive uses. For those constantly on the road (salesmen, real-estate agents, repair technicians, some managers and reporters) they're a godsend. The same is true for critical workers (doctors, oil-rig, fire-fighters) needed at a moment's notice. Otherwise benefits seem murky. They make driving more dangerous. Then, there's sheer nuisance. Private conversations have gone public. We've all been subjected to someone else's sales meeting, dinner reservation, family feud and dating problems. A recent poll asked which invention people hated most but couldn't live without. Cell phones won, chosen by 30 percent of respondents. They are obviously an irresistible force, but I vow to resist just as I've resisted A.T.M cards, laptops and digital cameras. I agree increasingly with the late poet Ogden Nash, who wrote: "Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long."
Newsweek, August 23, 2004