The Cynical Guy Contemplates Cell Phones

Like most techno-toys, they crept into our lives with the stealth of termites or garden weeds. There was no one defining moment that heralded the age of the cell phone, just as I recall no flashing lights in the sky when we adopted compact discs, personal computers and microwave ovens. I vaguely remember hearing about cellular technology as an up-and-coming investment opportunity; since I understood the phenomenon no better than I knew the Ethiopian alphabet, I let that prize catch slip away. I remember early talk about portable car phones, which some of my colleagues and I agreed would be the ideal gift for an insufferable boss of ours who tended to lose control as he shouted into the receiver. Nobody would ever suspect us of murder as his BMW careened off the Long Island Expressway. 

As a borderline Luddite, I naturally resisted the new cellular technology as it insinuated its way into everyday life. Something about it repelled me. It repelled me more than microwave ovens did when they first appeared on the scene (too boxy, too cold and soulless; when I cook a TV dinner, I like to feel the HEAT). To my archaic and untrusting mind, the cell phone positively reeked of Japanese techno-corporate one-upmanship: yet another diabolical technological device we’d have to adopt for maximum productivity, whether we wished to be productive or not. After all, we didn’t want to fall behind with the Hottentots and the British. It surprised me to learn that the world’s premier cell phone maker was based in Finland; I tried to imagine herds of reindeer grazing outside corporate headquarters.

I should confess right now, in front of you and almighty God, that I have my own cell phone account. Two years ago my then-girlfriend Anne persuaded me to go cellular; it comforted her to know that I was stranded in a traffic jam rather than heaving my last breath in an undisclosed emergency room. Now that we’re married, I hardly use the contraption. I’ve already forsaken the habit of automatically jamming it into my pants pocket along with my keys and my miniature leatherbound Day-Timer. Most of the time my cell phone just sits on my night-table, mute and marginalized as it gathers the dust of disuse. I’m aware of its presence as I pick up my keys; I can almost sense a sullen reproachfulness emanating from its metallic plastic shell as I shun it like some poor discarded lover. But my cell phone won’t accompany me today as I stroll out the door. The last time I used it was after a thunderstorm zapped our regular phone lines; I won’t deny that a cell phone justifies its cost during an emergency -- and that’s strictly how I use mine. It’s there to bail me out in a pinch -- at least until they pull the plug on my service provider, the doomed and hapless WorldCom. (Take pity on me: I’m a WorldCom investor as well as a subscriber.)

Why do cell phones irritate me? To my mind, too many cell phone users still project a sniffish and objectionable air of self-importance, the snobbery of professional indispensablity. You’d think their company would fold and Western civilization would collapse in a dust-heap if they couldn’t connect during their homeward commute. To watch them on the streets of the city, talking heads oblivious to their surroundings, oblivious to the sun and the clouds and the faces in the crowd (including MINE), oblivious to the cars they swerve past on the road, is to observe the human organism finally and irrevocably yanked from its roots. To become a walking (or driving) extension of a toyish electronic device is a sad culmination for a species that once sent burnt offerings to the heavens and built the Colossus of Rhodes. 

What exactly are we connecting to when we remain on call eighteen hours a day? The more important question should be, What are we disconnecting from? The irony is that by staying connected to their peers during lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, plane flights, vacations, movies, family outings, gym workouts, sex and funerals, cell phone users become disconnected from the pulse and texture of the earth, even from themselves. The world of the senses grows dim and irrelevant; extroverted professionalism vanquishes all. The melodious tootle of a ringing cell phone summons us from our private thoughts, wakes us out of reverie, forces us to be useful.

Voluntary isolation is an inalienable human right, like not having children or eating peanut butter straight out of the jar. No employer, spouse or client should expect us to be accessible on demand, and cell phone users shouldn’t take inordinate pride in the fact of their accessibility. A cell phone invades the solitude that some of us used to require to feel fully human, at ease in the cosmos. I can’t imagine William Wordsworth on a cell phone as he contemplated the sublime landscape above Tintern Abbey. It would be absurd to picture Walt Whitman with a cell phone in his knapsack, or a Sioux warrior pressing the buttons on his Nokia. I think we’ve grown afraid of silence. We no longer listen to the still, small voices in our souls; instead, we strain to hear the still, small voices that emanate from our cell phones.

I’m inclined to believe that cell phone mania is a passing phase in human evolution. Eventually we’ll all be implanted with electronic brain chips that beep to announce messages from friends, colleagues, clients and the Internal Revenue Service. There will be no escaping into solitude, no retreat from responsibility. Travel ten thousand miles to Bora Bora, and you’ll still hear those insistent voices in your head. I wonder if our brain chips will be equipped with on/off switches, or if we’ll be on call twenty-four hours a day. Well, I suppose the implants have their advantages. Medical experts have long been touting the health benefits of staying socially connected; chips will give us no choice but to stay in touch. Better yet, we’ll never have to pay long-distance or roaming charges.

Cynic's Pick of the Week

Bill Maher's long-running talkfest, 'Politically Incorrect,' finally winked off the air, a direct casualty of Maher's stubborn (and logically correct) insistence that the 9/11 terrorists weren't cowardly. (I agree: they were vile, fanatical, inhumanly cruel and destructive, but 'cowardly' is not the first word that comes to mind.) Here's yet another sad commentary on the state of freedom of speech in America -- though the worst outrage of all was that ABC ran the show too late at night for civilized people to watch.