Cell Phone Sin

       More Letters From Paradise
           Cell-Phone Sin
Alright, call me a "fuddy-duddy." I remember when a telephone was used exclusively to send and receive messages. Alexander Graham Bell never lived to see what he had unleas-ed on the civilized world.

Phones are appreciated for their use in emergency situations, such as lost hikers, lost at sea etc. I remember once when with our two boys out in the middle-of-nowhere-Utah, we  used a bag telephone. It was about the size of a WWII walkie talkie, or a giant popcorn box. Much greater range, though.

Smart machines are making people  dumber. Society has been changed forever.  An article in the M. Star Tribune by Allie Shah, "Texting While Asleep Affecting Phone-Reliant Youths,"  tells the story. This is known as "sleep texting," and is not uncommon. This is similar to sleep walking. The author notes that 1 in 3 teens sends more than 100 texts a day.

My beef is not with the cell-phone itself, but the way it is used. If you are one of the following, shame on you.
First, there are those couples in a restaurant, seated across from each other and are texting each other, instead of using oral speech. Or there is junior playing with his phone at the dinner table. Or, how about the person talking on her phone while checking out in a market or store. Rude! And, what about people using their phones while you are watching a movie? Rude again.
How about people who use their phones, while seated with others at dinner? Again very rude.  
Then there are those people who are alone in their own world, while crossing a street. This is just plain stupid. We see this everyday here in Honolulu. They must feel that they are able to stop a couple of tons of steel, coming at them. And in closing my rant, I note those who use their phones while driving. A danger not only to themselves, but to others as well.

 I wonder what historians would have written if Bell had texted Watson, instead of calling him on the phone?

         Aloha
         Grant