My old cell phone was slim, durable, and bare bones basic. It didn’t take pics or double as a computer. It had a calendar, but I rarely referred to it. It would have woken me up or reminded me of appointments, but I never asked it to. It displayed the date and time, sent and received calls, left me a record of both, and took voice messages. It was a good phone. I liked it lots.
Problem was, it wouldn’t text. Nine years ago, when I got it, I didn’t care about texting. Now the research is in (though some refute it, much as global warming was long touted as a “myth,” particularly by those who profit by it). Studies from Sweden, Australia and Israel that examined cumulative, long-term effects of cell phone use were unambiguous in their results. The studies convinced the scientists working in the field, anyway. They don’t put cell phones to their ears; neurosurgeons use speaker-phones and ear-jacks.
Granted, the risk is tiny for us thick-headed adults who purchased cell phones late in life and only occasionally use them (as opposed to thin-skulled youth with still-forming brains who wear their phones as accessories and use them constantly). But what matter the odds if you’re that one-in-a-million with a long-shot brain tumor? Cancer statistics are crap. It’s 50/50. Either you get it or you don’t. And if you want to hedge your bets, don’t ingest foods that are known to cause the disease, wear sunscreen, filter your water, and minimize the amount of time your cell phone’s antenna channels pulsed microwaves into your head.
Right. So I swapped out my old cell phone for a new one, one that can text. Feeling the pressure to choose on-the-spot from a computer screen displaying row upon row of cell phone pics, I vetoed a couple (too clunky-looking, too many bells and whistles), and took a chance on a slim model with a simple keypad and a snazzy, martial arts name–Katana. When it arrived (oh-so promptly–the phone company’s eager to be of service, as long as “service” means you’ll be using your phone more often to do more things), I breathed a sigh of relief. It would do nicely. Trim, sleek, classy, it suited my personality–or suited the personality I like to imagine is mine.
Now I had a phone that was “me,” the next order of business was more personalization. I recorded a personal message, selected personal settings. Red background or blue? Icons in tile format or list? I picked a noise for incoming calls from the world at large, another for calls from my near and dear, snagged a unique screen saver with the built-in camera. Yes, indeed, my phone was way cool. I started showing it off, “Check out my new cell!”
That was my mistake. Insulated, on my own, maybe I’d have been content to wallow in my little pool of personalized design elements, color choices and selected sounds. But splashing about with others, comparing our phones’ features and our trés amusing screen greetings, viewing slide-shows, chuckling at the musical bastardizations that ostensibly reflect our interests or senses of humor… hollow pleasures, all. We chose from a pre-packaged array of cookie-cutter options, then deliberated over superficial variations, convinced that they represented qualitative differences, and now we’re patting ourselves on the back for expressing ourselves with creativity and style.
It’s not the cookie-cutter part that bothers me. I could argue that a Romanian folk-costume is as cookie-cutter as a cell phone. I could even argue that the commonality of cell phones is an agent of social cohesion, just as the common threads of embroidered Balkan blouses create tangible cultural bonds. But the subtle variations in an ethnic shirt’s hand-stitched patterns reflect an individual’s skills, patience, and imagination. A custom ring tone reflects an individual preference. It’s commercialism at its triumphant worst: dazzled by bling, we’ve confused pride in our personal achievements with pride in our personal taste.
“Do I look all right?” Lenina asked. Her jacket was made of bottle green acetate cloth with green viscose fur; at the cuffs and collar….
Green corduroy shorts and white viscose-woolen stockings turned down below the knee….
A green-and-white jockey cap shaded Lenina’s eyes; her shoes were bright green and highly polished….
And round her waist she wore a silver-mounted green morocco-surrogate cartridge belt bulging (for Lenina was not a freemartin) with the regulation supply of contraceptives….
“Perfect!” cried Fanny enthusiastically.
I’m so glad I’m a Beta.
[Quote from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, 1932.]
Jeez, amazing, Dave. I always think of you as cutting edge tech-smart, now you ‘fess up to being a newbie cell user! My boys are total novices, just got cells last Midwinter. As for Luddite-hood, I think it’s inevitable. The speed of change in the post-industrial world has always been too fast for humans to keep up with–and it just keeps getting faster.
I’m still only two years into my first cell phone. Still haven’t learned how to text message. If I wanted to _write_ a message, I’d use a computer.
The more years go by, the more I feel like a Luddite.