~a column by Colleen O’Brien
With cell phones’ built-in addiction to be always in use – as a telephone, as a typewriter, as an encyclopedia, as a camera, as a newspaper, as a book — those of us who own them can be constantly knowledgeable as we are in constant communication.
This is a handy advantage during the holidays because we can text our friends an appropriate greeting – forget the snail mail card — and receive photos of our grands being elves in the Christmas play. We can look up who it was that played the evil banker in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” and check the weather in Cooper and Copenhagen. We can GPS ourselves to anyplace on the map, and we can get the latest uptick on the stock exchange. We are walking, talking, texting 24-7 informed folk.
Cell phones do make distant family members more intimate and our well of information more factual so we can speak to it all (any subject in the news) at cocktail parties.
What is it then that makes me wish I had a real phone at my ear? Probably the same thing that made my grandfather wonder why anyone needed a phone at all. Because it’s a new-fangled gadget that’s difficult to be handy with and that can make one look stupid in a heartbeat? That would be my guess, at least as it applies to me.
Let me count the ways the cell phone annoys me:
Cell phones’ ubiquity turns me off as I wish those who love them would turn it off. The cell is at the ear of every shopper in every aisle of every grocery store as well as at every driver’s left cheek as he drives blindly by; the brightly lit cell gazes up from the table at every patron in a restaurant as she or he ignores the seemingly unloved companion; some socially irresponsible phone always rings at a crucial moment in the movie. Really, cell fone, could you just stay home?
It could be that people aren’t forced to leave them at home like they had to with land lines.
It has to do with their annoying rings – the rooster crowing in the meeting is my most surprising so far.
There is the loudness of the talkers. Why do people yell into a cell?
There is the inability to tuck it under my chin so I can clean the grout around the sink while I’m talking.
There is the battery running out when I am nowhere to recharge.
There is the losing of them, or at least mine. Once, permanently (although this is more a teenager problem than that of woman-of-a-certain-age). My problem of lost cell comes moment to moment, as in, “Where did I put the !#$* thing?” It is covered by newspapers, it slips into the cushions, winds up in a pocket, sits on a book of the same color. I used to have a bag I wore around my neck to keep it corralled, but I lost that, too.
There is the inability to hear the other person speaking clearly (see “yell,” above).
There is the necessity of taking turns talking because if she’s talking, until she shuts up, she can’t hear me talking. And vice versa.
There is my inability to see the face of the phone when I’m outdoors.
There is the way the light on the screen goes off too soon or stays on forever.
There is the fact that it doesn’t ring long enough for me to get to it, unlike a land line that could ring all day. Sometimes I can’t even get to it in time when it’s in my pocket.
There is always someone who when you can’t think of what you want to say will pull out his I-fone and tell you. This is both good and as irritating as the reason for his doing this in the first place — my poor memory.
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There are fixes to some of these complaints, I’m sure. I admit my dunce-hood when it comes to electronics. Because I need someone to show me, I miss out on shortcuts and how, perhaps, to make the ring longer. If I don’t know the question, though, I’m not going to be getting answers.
There are many good things about the cell phone – I can call when I’m stuck in traffic and going to be late. I can make a room reservation a hundred miles out (well, I could if I knew how; so far, to me, this is a rumor).
I could call the police if I see a crime. Or if a crime is being perpetrated on me. Or if somebody’s weaving in and out on the freeway. I would stop to do this because I‘m not supposed to dial and drive.
My grandchildren reached an age where they would not answer their phones when they were with their friends if they saw the call was from Gramma. They will return a text immediately, however, because they like texting a lot.
In fact, texting is okay. When I don’t really want to talk to someone but need to get information to them, it is a sensible phone reform. They could have done this with land lines.
I use a computer, I can work a DVD player, and now, I have a cell phone — no more land line in the phone niche in my hallway. I am a with-it great gran mere. It’s just that I am old, so it takes me a while to get with the program of changing my Luddite ways.
I do think the cell has a few kinks still to be worked out before they design one that is faster and sleeker, unless of course they come up with the instant-travel model, where all I have to do is dial up where I want to be and the next instant I am there. This would be the technological breakthrough I’ve been waiting for since I read Buck Rogers.
