Crackberry

In the instantaneous world of the 21st century, I can see and speak to someone clear across the globe with the clarity that is only to be surpassed by their physical presence next to me. In a 1948 movie entitled: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Lon ChaneyJr., says to the operator that: I know how long it takes for a phone call to reach from London to the States, but please hurry! Would we even sit still for millisecond if someone told us that now.  In a movie from 1984: Starman, starring Charles Martin Smith he is heard to  say to his government superior, that we are the ancients when it comes to technology. I think of the progress technologically we have made in the sixties, seventies and eighties, only to see it double and triple over the last two decades.  

Point being? There are times that the wizardry cripples us. A great deal of the population is now codependent on their 4G phone. It is apparent everywhere you go. I see people walking and eyes glued to their 4 inch screens and letting the real world take the back seat as if it didn’t provide them excitement enough. Then as people have taken cell phone use to an even more dangerous level, texting, technology and it’s instant gratification has threatened the lives maybe as much as DWI has. I don’t know that for sure but the figures will become alarming when the studies are completed. 

I too have succumbed to the phone with every application, sans shoe horn and back scratcher and I want to admit openly that my will is as weak as most of America. I should not limit this phenomena to the U.S. either as a British friend of mine says that the English refer to their Blackberry’s as a “Crackberry.” 

Another drawback is just how rude we have become in the company of strangers when we are talking or texting to our inner circle. Just last night I was at a very boring seminar with an equally inept speaker when I spied about 1/4 of the audience thumb typing on their phones. I wonder if it was just because the speaker was boring, or how they were wishing they were someplace else.