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9:38:00 AM EST
Hearing Corsair -- Boards of Canada
Everywhere All at Once
The author of this article has a beef with cell phones:
[T]he cell phone has changed our sense of place... because of its ability to intrude into every moment in every possible place. When you walk along the street and talk on a cell phone, you are not on the street sharing the communal experience of urban life. You are in some other place--someplace at the other end of your phone conversation. You are there, but you are not there.
In other words, your cell phone makes you a zombie in the real world.
I think this is probably 100% true; ultimately a cell phone isn't just a way to keep in contact, it's also a tether drawing you back from where you are into some other place. It's why I've never really been tempted to get one. I have a hard enough time not checking e-mail every 30 seconds; a cell phone is even worse. Not that I've seen the scandalous Paris Hilton tape, ahem, ahem, but I understand there's one moment when, while occupied, Hilton's cell phone goes off and she stops what she's doing to answer it. It's just me, but that seems a real misapplication of priorities.
Over the weekend I drove several hundred miles and I had all that time to think about stuff; it was an excellent time for my brain. Then I'd look out the window of my car and see other people yammering on their cell phones. I don't know. In your car, on the street or just by yourself, sometimes it's good to be out of contact, and engaged in where you actually are.
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I've never really thought about it like that, but I agree. Never say never, you know, but I will never own a cellphone. Too intrusive. "Where are you?" "What business is it of yours?"
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I agree that cell phones intrude on your time and make it where you aren't concentrating on the present, but thinking of something else. But once you have one and see how convenient it is....
It's almost like a microwave. You know we've had them for so long, we can scarcely remember how to do things without them.
11/18/03 6:57 PM
Lisa