CELL ME ANOTHER ONE

Scoper

The short story was written sometime in the mid-1950's, and when I read it as a kid 10 or 12 years later, it was so fantastic it took my breath away. I won't bore you with the plot, but the gee-whiz part centered on a traveling salesman who saved the day because he had -- get this -- A TELEPHONE IN HIS CAR!

Back then, I thought: "wouldn't it be super-neat if everyone had one of those?" Be careful what you wish for.

The best example comes from the wickedly satirical movie: "Clueless," when Cher just has to say something to her girlfriend at school. They're still talking, cell-phone to cell-phone, as they walk down the hallway, side-by-side.

The power of any technology to improve human life is also the power to diminish it in ways not originally foreseen. (Wow, did Scoper take a "philosophy pill?" Nah, a couple of gin and tonics works about as well.)

The atomic bomb stopped a horrible war 55 years ago, but we've lived in some level of fear of total annihilation ever since. The automobile made huge cities possible, then choked those cities with their very numbers, while advancing air pollution and urban sprawl. Television gave us a window to the world, but also gave us Jerry Springer, South Park, and instant-millionaire athletes who can't seem to stay out of trouble. The world-wide-web gives us all an instant forum, including child pornographers and neo-nazis.

There's probably a "reasonable balance" within each of those technologies; we just haven't found it yet. So it is with cell-phones. Because you see, while Captain Kirk couldn't get along without his communicator ("Scotty! Save my ass!"), we're just not up to Star Trek society standards. You've already seen the results: a lot of people, who basically have nothing to say, now have another way to say it.

And saying it they are, in their cars, on the sidewalks, in restaurants, in theaters, sometimes in libraries, maybe even in church (though I'd like to think God'll get 'em for that.) Kind of like the evolution of television: 79 channels and there's still nothing on.

Look, I'm not some sort of Luddite. (You're reading this on the Internet, aren't you?) Nor am I trying for some updated version of "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit."

Cell phones do serve a useful purpose. Salespeople find they justify their cost many times over in increased efficiency for themselves and their customers. They're literal lifesavers in emergencies (and far superior to CB radios, good buddy.) If I had a teenage daughter, I wouldn't want her to be on the road alone without one. And I especially wouldn't want her on a date without one; I used to be a teenage boy.

But how many people are truly better off for having telephones in their pockets? Not that it's any of my business what people use them for, or when or why. Nor do I care. It's the fact that a ringing telephone demands attention. When the phone rings, face-to-face communication stops. The person who called you has just cut to the front of the line. This used to happen only at home. Now it happens anytime, anywhere. In an increasingly stressful world, is that good or bad? You tell me.

Now I've come back to the 1950's traveling salesman and his car-phone. (By the way, those old-style "radio-telephones" only worked in or near cities. Part of the suspense of the story involved him driving at breakneck speed to get within range of an operator.)

But there were far fewer cars on the road 45 years ago, and practically no one was talking on the phone while driving one. Three weeks ago, I was almost creamed by a guy who was driving with one hand and holding a phone to his ear with the other. His conversation didn't allow him to notice that the light had changed. It's gotten so that when I see really bad driving today, I look for the phone. At least half the time, there it is.

There's been at least one scientifically valid study to show that a driver talking on the phone is statistically as dangerous on the road as someone who's at the drunk-driving threshold. A couple of municipalities have banned driving-while-phoning, but don't look for this to go nationwide: too much money and too much politics involved.

Far easier to nail the blue-collar guy who's a menace because he's had too much beer, than to go after the vice-president of whatsit who wrecked because his phone-call was more important. Even if they did the same damage, and caused the same pain, the VP won't be taken off the road. He committed an "infraction," not a crime.

This strikes me as somewhat un-American, but, as always, I ask only that you think about it.

Oh yes, just a year or two after I read that mobile telephone story, a song came on the radio that went: "Everybody's talkin' at me. I don't hear a word they're sayin'."

Irony is such fun.