Planet Cell Phone

While discussing the 1999 film, "The Blair Witch Project", an acquaintance burst out: "Who would go out in the woods like that without their cell phone? Are they STUPID?" I calmly defended the film by explaining that it takes place in 1994 and I know from personal experience that the whole pager phenomena hadn't even gotten a firm foothold at that time in mainstream consciousness. Back then, cell phones were for doctors, they were roughly the size of a shoe box, and it was a rare treat to get a call from someone using one: "You're calling me... FROM THE CAR!!?? SERIOUSLY??"

These days, one of my friends is considering giving her twelve year old son her old cell phone. They are so commonplace that they have literally blended into our culture. They have changed so many facets of our day-to-day lives, it is astounding. Gone are the days of the long phone call. Now, everyone is calculating their minutes in their heads and how much that particular call will cost them. Or, the dreaded: "Hurry up!! I have pre-pay!!"

Being a shopaholic, cell phones have changed the way I shop with friends. When I was 5 years old I got separated from my family at the Minnesota State Fair midway right near "The Glass House" with all the clowns. I still have latent abandonment issues about that and don’t even get me STARTED on clowns. Today, if my friends and I lose each other in a crowd and we all have cell phones, we simply call one another. "Sorry, I was checking some guy out. I'm over here by this annoying glass house thing. Yeah? Oh... I see you." This has also, conversely, affected our ability to find each other if we DON'T have our cell phones on us. "Where's Sarah?" "I don't know. Call her." "She doesn't have her phone on her..." "OH NO!! What EVER shall we do?"

Cell phones and laptops are gradually edging out the novel or newspaper as the preferred PLEASE DON'T TALK TO ME shield on public transportation. They make us the unwilling witness to people's private lives. I have been subjected to many loud half-conversations. "Baby, I didn't mean to hit you, but you made me so MAD. Why you do that to me, baby?" I work in a call center and after fielding the 8th phone call from so-and-so's boyfriend I found myself INCENSED that the woman refuses to get a cell phone. Who wouldn't want one? Is she nuts?

There is a sinister stalker aspect to cell phones, too. Consider the "Scream" trilogy. "Who is this? Where are you calling from?" "RIGHT BEHIND YOU WITH AN AXE!!" That would never have happened with even the best cordless phones. They have also become a punch line in bad horror movies. The psycho killers don't need to cut the phone line anymore, they just wait patiently for you to realize you have no signal.

Taking this sinister turn leads me to my ultimate number one pet peeve about cell phones. They are great for convenience, for missed appointments, for losing someone in a crowd and for stalking someone. They are not now nor will they ever be great for replacing a land-line phone. I don't care if you have the most expensive cell phone on the planet, it still sounds like you are talking in a tin can half the time. My sister uses her cell phone and has no need for a land line except for her computer and her alarm system. Therefore, if she becomes scatter-brained after a movie (as she often does) and forgets to turn her phone on there is literally no way to contact her. "I'm being robbed and beaten and thrown into a ditch!!" isn't the kind of thing you want to leave on a voice mail. Not to mention, the woman is my "In case of emergency..." person. What if a disgruntled employee burst into my place of work and shot the place up? "Your brother has been shot!!" is not an appropriate voice mail message either.

A good and bad thing about cell phones is that they remind you that you are talking on the phone. They are crotchety and particular about where they are being used. They don't do tunnels and if the person you are having an intimate conversation with goes through one, you are likely to be left cold with dead silence and a hunk of shockingly expensive plastic pressed to your ear. If you go for the ever-vilified pay-as-you-go route, you can be cut off in mid-conversation. With no minutes and no money to add more, your cell phone becomes a very expensive electronic phone book. Still, these glitches remind us that talking on the phone is a poor substitute for real contact.

And what about remembering people's phone numbers? That seems to have fallen by the wayside, too. Because of caller ID and cell phones I have had several friends give me blank stares when I ask them what my phone number is, just to test them. They reach for their cell phones instead to bring up their "Contacts" list. I have remembered phone numbers since I was four years old when I cherubically recited our phone number (minus area code cause there was just ONE then) much to the shock and amusement of my parents. I never use the contacts list. I don't want to be unable to call people if I forget my cell phone and (god forbid) have to stoop to the level of using a pay phone. Remember pay phones?

Yesterday, I was heading to breakfast with a friend. We were about to pass a mutual friend’s house and I mentioned that we should call and ask if she wanted to accompany us. The friend I was with said: "Give her a call." I explained that I didn't have my cell phone with me and didn't have minutes on it anyway, because I am on the aforementioned pre-pay. Not to mention, it was sitting in my school bag at home, probably dead to the world because I hadn't charged it in a week. Apparently, this was in poor form for a cell phone owner. I was given the third degree and accused of having a "problem" with cell phones because I was writing this paper. This paper had poisoned me to the wonderful things about cell phones, supposedly.

I think cell phones are just one more electronic gadget we have become dependent on and Verizon, Cingulair, T-Mobile and Virgin Mobile are laughing all the way to the bank. Like all electronic gadgets, there are bad and good things about them. They can come in handy when you are stranded on the side of the road, provided you have them sufficiently charged and with an ample number of signal bars, but they also cause way too many accidents by people not following the hang-up-and-drive laws. They certainly don’t seem to have made our lives any simpler. Are we truly any less busy because we can carry phones in our pockets or have we compensated for the freed-up time with even more tasks?

Finally, since cell phones are getting smaller and smaller it is practically inevitable that they will soon be implanted in our brains. We will be in the middle of actual human contact and a person will get a blank look on their face and say. "Hold on. I'm getting a call. Answer. Volume. Hey, what's up? Yes, that's right! You're calling my BRAIN!!" The implications are astounding.