I’d say that guy is
me, except that the caption is too short. Were I in a New Yorker cartoon, my caption would read, “Just sitting here
waiting for Facebook, Twitter, and a world in which everyone is interacting
with his or her phone every damn second to go away. And frankly, I’d rather not
be on the phone right now, even to convey this cartoon punch line.”
Such a caption
would be way too long for the New Yorker’s
taste, of course, and far too cranky. Rather than simply critiquing, in a
succinct and amusing way, one discrete aspect of our self-absorbed culture, my
caption would pointedly indict the vast majority of the New Yorker’s readers. Who, like most everyone else today, might
rather lose their food supply than their phone service. Still, my caption,
wordy and dyspeptic as it might be, accurately summarizes my views.
But I recognize that
Facebook, Twitter and society’s demand to be connected by technology all the
time aren’t going away. As I had noted in my May 24 post, “Glass Too Full,” I know
that I haven’t seen the half of it yet, or even the sixteenth. The “augmented
reality” of Google Glass spectacles is just down the pike, on the road to
embedded computer chips in our noggins and God knows what else. The ship headed
at breakneck speed away from the quiet shores of my youth hasn’t just sailed.
It has capsized, and been replaced by a virtual luxury liner that serves up a
24-hour buffet of instant gratification and dazzling cacophony. There’s no going
back. And resistance—total resistance, at
least—is futile, and even counterproductive in some ways. Unless, that is, you’re
already in your 80s, like my steadfastly Luddite parents, and keeping the damn kids
off your lawn for just a few more years is do-able.
But I only just
turned 55. Which feels plenty old to me, especially in view of last week’s
optical check-up, the print summary of which reads like a catalog of decrepitude:
“Today’s visit diagnoses: incipient
cataract, myopia, astigmatism, presbyopia (age-related vision difficulty).”
The thirty-something optometrist assured me that it’s all perfectly normal, to
be expected. As if that was good
news. Anyway, while 55 clearly ain’t young (and yes, I still can see clearly—with
glasses, of course), it’s more likely than not that I’ve got at least a couple
more decades on this planet. So, as I outlined in that May blog post, I had
determined by that time—for reasons of practicality and of peace of mind, given
my technophobia—that I needed finally to enter the 21st century, and get a
smartphone.
Lynn did the research,
in her role as the consumer reporter of our union, and last Sunday found us at
our neighborhood Verizon Wireless store, where an extremely patient young man
spent the first hour and 45 minutes of his work day setting up our iPhones and
showing us some basics (most of which we’d forgotten by the end of our five-minute
walk back to the house). We were a bit shell-shocked by the expense—both upfront
and in perpetuity—of our passports to 24/7 interconnectivity. I asked Lynn,
rhetorically, how people less financially secure than we can possibly afford
monthly cell phone bills on top of their mortgage or rent, utility costs, food bills,
and all the other expenses of modern life. She answered—resignedly but not
inaccurately—“They can’t. That’s why everyone’s in debt.”
The reason cost loomed
so large in my mind was because I knew Lynn had consented to the iPhones, which
she gladly could have done without (unlike me, she already had a “dumb” cell phone),
because this was a place I felt I needed to go. And I immediately wondered if I’d
ever use my iPhone enough to justify the expense. I really do hate talking on the phone, after all. I don’t feature
downloading a ton of apps. Given my deep antipathy for people constantly texting
in public, how likely am I to do much of that?
Now, as I type
these words—on my home computer, to be sure, and certainly not on my phone, if
one even can even type a Word document on a phone—it’s five days later. What
have I learned, and how am I feeling about the whole thing at this point? It’s a
bit complicated.
I have exchanged
texts with several people—unexpectedly popping up on their phones, joking that,
as unlikely as it might seem given this week’s horrid heat and humidity up and
down the Atlantic Seaboard, hell has in fact frozen over. Their responses have been
along the lines of “WTF?!”—underlining, clearly, the must-(not)-read status of
this blog—with my friend Elaine memorably demanding to know, in her reply, “What
is this sorcery?!” I must concede that it’s been pretty fun, and also good for
my self-esteem. When, yesterday, after a lunchtime tutorial from my tech-whiz
friend Jason, I succeeded not only in taking a photo of the cheesy battle that
every day is waged atop my office bookcase between Godzilla and Gammera the
Flying Turtle, but also in embedding that photo within a text message that I
then sent, I felt as if I’d just graduated from MIT.
On the other hand,
though, there’s this: One thing that I’ve sort of liked, personally, about
texting in these early days is concurrently what I greatly dislike about it in a global sense. In a number of cases, when I
first texted someone, I heard back from that person immediately. Take my friend
Lara, for example, who by her own admission seldom checks her e-mail, and who
always lets incoming phone calls go to voicemail. I’d last heard from her
sometime during the first Obama administration, or so it seemed, yet she had
responded to my text message almost before I was sure it had been sent. So, I
quickly witnessed texting’s potential to reach the otherwise unreachable. And beyond
that, sure, when you have an urgent question for someone, or when you just want
quick confirmation that he or she was charmed by your idiotic Godzillla photo,
it’s great to get an immediate response.
Getting a
split-second response also, though, confirms my worst fear. Which is that
pretty much everyone in the world anymore is all but surgically attached to his
or her phone, and might feel actual physical withdrawal were it to be out of
his or her sight for a solitary second. Which, to me, is incredibly depressing.
Checking for messages fairly regularly is one thing, having a Pavlovian
response to each and every ring, chime or vibration quite another.
Per my preexisting
aversion, I’ve thus far initiated no calls on my phone and have received only
one—from Jason, and it echoed, because he was sitting a couple of feet away
from me in my office at the time. But I can see where having a mobile phone will
come in handy from time to time. Like, for instance, if I’m standing at the
side of the road and I see a driver distractedly yakking away on his or her
hand-held device, which is illegal in all local jurisdictions. In that event, I
may well wish to alert the authorities.
I guess phones are
good for emergencies, too.
I haven’t done any
e-mailing by phone yet, but that will be advantageous on occasion. In a major
breakthrough this morning, at Starbucks after my run, I successfully accessed
my office e-mail on my iPhone. Someone I plan to interview for an article had
proposed a few possible times, and I could have confirmed one of them via my
phone. In that instance, however, it was easier to just wait until I got home,
and to type out a leisurely reply on a full-sized computer keyboard, as opposed
to laboriously composing a clipped response on my small phone screen.
I have read a few
newspaper stories and headlines on my phone, though I find it a constricted and
largely unpleasant viewing experience. But there will be times, I’m sure, when
I’ll appreciate the convenience of overhearing people talking about the latest
overnight scandal or calamity or international contretemps and being able to
immediately get the journalistic details. Let’s face it, too: Given my
aforementioned age and the surety of diminishing memory, there will be times
when I simply must Google the dreadfully important name of that sitcom actor or
song title that lies just outside my cerebral cortex.
What else do people
do with their phones? Oh, right—they download and use all manner of apps. I
haven’t done any of that yet. I already can think of many apps in which I have
no interest, such as paying for coffee with my phone, or mapping my runs. I prefer
to keep track of my expenses by using cash whenever it’s practical. And the way
I map my runs is by deciding if I like the scenery on that street, or if I’m really
in the mood to climb yonder hill. I can, however, think of at least one app I
probably will want to download: the Major
League Baseball scoreboard app. At least if my historically woebegone team, the
Pittsburgh Pirates, continues its improbable run of success. (Apps can easily
be deleted, right?)
I suppose what I’m
trying to say is that I’m glad, by and large, that I’ve taken this step. And it
seems likely I’ll feel even better about it once I know how to do a few more
things. I already feel less stupid and less obstinately self-segregated from
the mainstream of American life, which is all to the good. But it’s very much
an open question whether the true believers who have exclaimed, “You’ll love
it! You’ll get to the point where you can’t imagine you ever lived without it!”
will be proven right. I frankly can’t see ever shaking the conviction that much
has been lost in our light-speed rush away from a pace of life and degree of
contentedness that seemed to serve the human race quite well for a very long
time—until, that is, we bought into the idea that faster, without fail,
is better.
I not only can
imagine that I—that we—ever lived without what communication technology has wrought, but I
happily, wistfully, daydream about those days.
