Say A Command...

“The person you have tried to reach is currently unavailable, at the tone, please record your message.” What a terrifying sentence from such a small piece of technology known today as “the cell phone.’’ As you hear these automated words, even reading them on paper, your body is paralyzed with fear. Your blood runs cold, your fingers grow numb, and your heart fills with sorrow. How has society become so dependant upon such a small piece of equipment? How did our ancestors manage to live without it? Although the cell phone is a tremendously useful piece of technology and has made communication seemingly effortless, it has evolved into an incredibly powerful device which has defeated the purpose of competent communication and personalization.

What an amazing time we live in when we don’t even have to dial a number to communicate with people on a world wide level and to be able to communicate anytime and anywhere by simply saying a command to our phones. Even the idea of having a home phone number is beginning to be obsolete. No other technology today has made modes of communication as convenient as the cell phone. The World Wide Web, digital cameras, and navigation technologies all at the push of a button; our very lives are encapsulated in this one small devices.

Imagine for a moment that the worst possible scenario presents itself. Your phone plummets to the ground, landing in the only puddle of water for miles, and your phone, as well as your very life as you knew it moments ago, is obliterated! Panic and chaos ensue as you frantically try to dry off your beloved companion. You remove and replace the battery back to its home and press power, but to no avail. Your phone is dead. As tears stream down your face, your heart clenches with fear when you realize, that not only can you not call your BFF (best friend forever), but you don’t even know their number, or any other number of importance to you except for 911 which is useless in times like these.

As sad as this tale is, our lives truly are entrusted into these capsules of knowledge. When is the last time we tried to memorize a significant phone number, address, or anything of importance? I personally can’t recall such a time. This tragic event would have annihilated my social life. The friends that I contact on my cell phone throughout the nation would have been lost. My Grandfather always carried two things with him at all times. A pencil and a small 3x5 pocketbook full of important names, dates, locations etc. When he had filled a pocketbook, he placed it into a small fireproof safe with the others. This is a dying art in our society. One which may be finished after our generation if we do not listen to the past.

Today the cell phone might be referred to as a mobile phone. Although our ancestors did have the privilege of using a phone away from home, they had to burden themselves by locating a phone booth, a structure that has died off in recent years. The phone booth would give the caller a small, enclosed area of privacy where the caller could communicate with loved ones or business associates for mere pennies. Today it seems as though the very concept of the phone booth has been discarded. No matter where we go, we are bombarded by hearing the intimate details of people’s lives as they talk on their phones. When we walk to our cars, in the grocery store, restrooms, and even church buildings, we can learn more intimate details of the strangers next to us than we might have ever wanted to. There seems to be a plague throughout our society that not only acknowledges this dilemma, but widely accepts it as well. We have not only discarded any homage to the phone booth, but have destroyed the very meaning and idea of it.

Out of all of my ten or so years of cell phone usage, I can only recall maybe a handful of times when a cell phone was absolutely necessary. These times being either road side emergencies, or family emergencies. Almost any other call that I have made could have been tended to before or after leaving the home. The need to communicate for hundreds if not thousands of minutes a month seems to negate the purpose of meaningful communication. Another unique feature of the cell phone is the option for text messages, which is similar to pagers. Texting allows for small tidbits of information to be delivered in a short period of time. This technology also makes communication bland in my opinion. Our intelligence seems to always fall short of our abilities when it comes to texting. We are also so exhausted from pushing buttons that we fail to spell the word in its entirety, and settled for a jumbled heap of letters and numbers. For example the word wait would magically go through mitosis and emerge as “w8”.

Are we really laughing out loud or my personal favorite of rolling on the floor laughing? If anything our ancestors are ROFL’ing at us for being so naïve and taking for granted the power of eloquently spoken or written words. But who needs eloquent words when your cell phone can sound like a lightsaber?