When Alexander Graham Bell summoned his assistant Mr. Watson with the first message heard on what became known as the telephone, maybe he should have simply repeated the telegraph’s first message: what hath God wrought? At the very least, it could have been an afterthought.
Phones today fit in a pocket, take pictures, make your movie ticket reservations and help locate your car in a parking lot without the help of lamppost signage (“Remember everybody, we’re parked in G29”). What they can’t do is hardwire some common sense into the user’s brain or encourage some manners in everyday society.
Ringtones interrupt the opera house at least once every performance at the Metropolitan Opera. Fortunately nobody there seems to program it for rap hits. When society has to remind us in an entertainment venue to turn off electronic devices or set them to vibrate, we’ve become a little strange, if you ask me. I admit, however, to finding vibrating phones amusing, especially when they vibrate off a tabletop onto the floor.
Sometimes it’s a revelation when somebody’s phone rings. The most respectable person in the room may have Def Leppard for a ringtone, and the dude with the multiple lip rings will answer the summons of Puccini (I’d rather have him in the audience at the opera).
What I don’t understand is what is so important that people seem to chat on their cell phones constantly. Don’t people stop to breathe anymore? Even in the restroom I can hear conversations I would prefer not to be privy to (excuse the pun). If I were on the receiving end of a call made from a restroom stall, I’d tell whoever it is to call back.
I have a small non-committal plan, since I only use the phone for emergencies such as the time the train home was discontinued and it took me two hours to get out of the city with bus service. I don’t use a gizmo to attach my cell phone calls to my ear, and I don’t access the Internet with it. That probably makes me a dimwitted anachronism, but at least you won’t find me answering a ringtone in the restroom.
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