I hope that you enjoy reading this post on the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where eight of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by your truly. The seven other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Delirious, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Maxi, Paul, Shackman, The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!
Shackman commented on my last week’s LBC post on My Greatest Fear as : “Sounds like a real fear to me – but the good old cellphone would sure be handy.” Yes indeed and when I see big signs on the Expressway between Pune and New Bombay giving the emergency phone number to call at need, I am reassured that I can get someone to come and repair / change a tyre for me. On the other roads, particularly the country ones, one can call someone or the other to locate someone or the other to come to my rescue and that has indeed acted as a great booster to my confidence. The good old cell phone has come to my rescue many times in other ways like just the other day when I had gone out forgetting my keys to the house and it took just a phone call to my son to ensure that when I returned home I would not be locked out. The small business that I run is entirely dependent on modern telephony between my clients, me and my principals.
By now my readers would have understood that I am not a Luddite when it comes to modern telephony. I enjoy my very modern smart phone and am convinced that it has indeed made me smarter than when I did not have it. My problem is not with the convenience but what it does to society.
During the same occasion when I had forgotten to take my keys, I saw three motocyclists using the phone while riding their bikes, and one of them with the instrument tucked between his ear and the top of his shoulder with the head tilted to one side. None of the three had a helmet on and that was the limit of carelessness. I can’t but fret that one of these morons could just possibly fall beneath my wheels and while I would not mourn his passing away, I would certainly mind the inconvenience that it would cause me.
Fast forward nearer home and I was stuck in a traffic jam with vehicles moving at snails pace. The driver of a car ahead of me was texting or reading incoming mail on his hand held device and ran into a truck moving slowly ahead of him. You can imagine the problems that the small incident caused in an already tense situation. It took another fifteen minutes before a settlement could be reached between that moron and the owner of the truck who insisted on taking his pound of flesh and when it was pointed out to the driver of the car that he was texting by another sufferer, a fisticuffs resulted and there was total chaos.
I have also written elsewhere that it is impossible not to observe and wonder at the present family communications in public places like restaurants. It is very common to see all of them eating their food while either texting or playing games or talking on their devices! What is the point of such togetherness?
On another occasion, I saw a couple walking together but both talking on cell phones. I stopped them and asked if they were talking to each other! Okay, they saw the humour of it and since my tone was quite amused, they said no and moved on.
I also observe in cinema theaters and other gatherings of people like our Senior Citizens Group, that people simply keep disturbing others with incoming calls.
A recent survey in India found that the average cell phone user checks it every six and a half minutes! New diseases are cropping up like Text Neck, Chronic Dry Eye Syndrome and Twitter Fingers!
I would not be surprised if families bury the handsets along with relatives and hope that the corpse will either use the phone if it resurrects or that the family will be able to communicate with it in the hereafter.