A little disambiguation, please
Among we common folk, is there anything more self-assured (and self-important) than a teenage girl on a city bus with a cell phone? Of course. A group thereof. I travel with a small flock, morning and evening, so I feel qualified to testify. Not quite an expert witness (I’m unpaid) but over time anything is possible.
Just so we are on the same wave-length, a little disambiguation, please. The key here is the term cell. My referral to the appropriate page at Wikipedia adds weight to the topic. The Cell, in all it’s new self-assured (and self-important) glory.
Shall we begin? The cell, a small and functional unit of life. Functional, that is open to argument. Small. Yes. Necessary to life; only to those who own one. Watch a “cellie” in action. The first and last action of each pause is to pull out the cell and check it for something that escapes me.
The cell as a communication tool. Who are all these people talking to? Each other? Themselves in a sad improvised theatre of daily life? Perhaps. Are they announcing an imminent emergency? On the city bus – I don’t think so, although there are now posters asking people to phone the police if someone starts beating on the bus driver. And I haven’t been in a bus accident in years.
A prison cell. Well, the visual image of enough bars to carry on a call is well chosen. Except that the “cellie” is happiest when there are lots of bars. Is this analogous to the Stockholm Syndrome? A jail of their own making. Willing prisoners of technology.
As an art form. I have read “The Cell“ by Stephen King, in which he refers to the device as the intercom of the devil, and paints a tale of cell users devolving into flocks of mindless birds. Ever watched a car driver with a cell? Proof of principle. No doubt piloting an automobile while your brain is “far and away” is also an art, of sorts. The musical aspect of ringtones is gross.
I’ll stay away from the religious aspects. I’m a cell-less person. There is a phone that rings far too often on my desk at work. There is a phone that rings far too often (for other people) in my home. I ride the bus, where I am not in control. I avoid emergencies and near occasions thereof (think of this as a modified Act of Contrition ) so the claims of the converted fall on deaf ears.
That’s it. I am not ambiguous. This is was a Cell-free zone. Tonight my wife dragged home a stray from a friend and asked the fatal question. “Can we keep it, please?”
