Cell phones are the new cigarettes
I realized something today while watching the umpteenth cell phone ad on TV during "Deadliest Catch" (awesome show BTW). Cell phones are quickly gaining many of the cultural stigmas and traits that cigarettes have enjoyed (endured?) over the years. First, there are many studies (though nothing conclusive) that show that extended cell phone use for long periods of time can lead to brain cancer. Just like cigarettes can lead to lung cancer. Also, more and more restaurants are banning cell phone use in their dining areas so as to not disrupt the non-cell phone using customers. If that wasn't enough, cell phones are becoming so ubiquitous in every day life, that they are becoming a natural and even expected detail in TV and film. They are at the same time status symbols, social instrument, and, for some, an addiction.
Cell phones are the new cigarettes.
Think about that last parallel I mentioned. How many of you saw "The Departed"? Everyone? No? Well stop what you're doing, go rent it /add it to your queue and come back when you're done. No really, I'll wait. (BTW, every time you don't watch a Martin Scorsese film, he misses another Oscar).
Done? Good. Now where was I? Ah yes: Cell phones in movies. Cell phones play an important, nigh indispensable, role in "The Departed." Seriously, take cell phones out of the movie. What do you have? Now think back to any movie you've seen pre-1955 or so. Everybody smoked. Even the doctors and patients in hospitals smoked! Shit, without smoking, 90% of film noir films would basically be title and credits. Maybe some drinking. Maybe. And then there's movies like "Cellular" that, while not exactly Oscar-worthy, depend almost entirely on the prevalence of cell phones in modern society.
Not convinced? Then think about the last concert you went to where the average age was no greater than 30 (i.e. Panic! At the Disco, My Chemical Romance, The Strokes, Brittney Spears*, etc.), or, hell, just about any concert where people don't wear Grateful Dead T-shirts. When it got to one of those songs, what did everyone hold up? (You know the ones I mean.) Lighters? Nope. Cell phones. Even if you smoke you probably hold up your cell phone. That's just how it's done these days. Instead of a sea of flickering orange flames during Metallica's Nothing Else Matters, now we get the steady blue-green glow of cell phone screens.
Interesting, is it not? Now if you'll excuse me, I have a call.
*If you have ever been to a Brittney Spears concert and you are not an 11-year old girl (and if you are, you need burn all your Brittney CDs and reassess your life), please slam your nuts in the nearest door or filing cabinet. If you do not have nuts due to your being female or a eunuch, beating yourself senseless with your own arms will suffice.
5 comments:
Random Tangent: You ever watch somebody who tries to talk on a cell phone while simultaneously conducting business? Say, while buying movie tickets, ordering fast food, or picking up their dry cleaning?
You ever notice that it has become the custom to apologize ("Sorry, I'm at Jack in the Box."), but ONLY to the person on the cell phone, NOT to the person with whom one is rudely attempting to conduct business whilst on a cell phone? Nor to the people waiting patiently behind you while you hold up the line with a transaction that's taking three times as long as it ought to because you're incapable of saying, "Hey, I've got to take care of something, can I call you right back?"
What's up with that?
Not that I don't think a nice apology to ONE of the people you're being rude to isn't a good first start, I just think it would be nice to spread it around a little more.
Another thought:
Ironically, I think I have been able to go this long without ever owning (or renting, or leasing, or whatever the hell it is you people do) a cell phone is BECAUSE of their ubiquity.
There are certainly situations in which one would be useful, but in literally all of those situations thus far, I've been able to bum somebody else's for a few minutes. I have never encountered a situation in which, yes, it would be highly useful to make a phone call on the go, and no, there isn't a pay phone or a business that would allow me to make a local call on their phone within a convenient radius, in which I haven't been able to simply turn to the person next to me and say, "Hey, can I borrow your phone for a second?" or, "Hey, would you mind calling Frank and asking where we were supposed to meet him again?"
Third thought: Is it just me, or is no cell phone ever a local call in the area in which it is most frequently used?
You know, I've noticed all those things too. Even though I've had a cell for a good long while, one thing I've really managed to avoid is text messaging. Might be because my phone is really crappy at it, or because I just suck, but either way 99% of the time when someone sends me a text, I just call them back.
As for your third point, I have a theory. For many people, cellphones become their primary contact point. A lot of people don't even have a home phone and if they do, people just call the cell anyway if they want that person specifically. But because they have so much invested in that number, when they move they don't want to change and have to tell a ton of people that the number has changed. And since local vs. long distance with cell phones really doesn't mean anything any more, why change it? That's why my phone is still a 520 area code.
I never quite understood the appeal of text messaging, either. Why take fifteen minutes typing something with your thumbs that you could call up and say in fifteen seconds?
The Boondocks has an "its not racist because a black guy said it first" term for stuff like that: "nigger technology."
...Hey, don't look at me that way, a black guy said it first. (-:
That is why I want to build a cell phone jammer. That and for people who can't drive and use cell phones.
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