Guess Where I'm Calling From?Can you hear me now?I was watching Jurassic Park III at the multiplex when a cell phone started ringing. The entire audience immediately reached into their pockets, before realizing that the cell phone was part of the movie. The entire audience laughed in unison. Joke on us! That the cell phone was in the stomach of an extremely large carnivore may or may not have added to the humor. I won't tell you how it got there, except to say I found the whole sequence a rather clever variation on Captain Hook's ticking crocodile. Off-screen, cell phones aren't generally a harbinger of impending doom, just another annoyance. I don't understand why they're annoying, exactly. We don't get annoyed when we see people talking on a pay phone, or even talking to themselves. What's the difference? THE ROOT OF FRUSTRATIONSIs it, perhaps, the conspicuous consumption aspect of cell phones? In the past maybe, but now everyone and their dog has a cell phone, so it's not a yuppie trend anymore. People do speak louder on a cell than a regular phone. Again, I don't know why. Maybe it's because a cell phone is smaller than a regular telephone, and people speak louder to make sure their voices can be squeezed into it. There are frequent complaints of inappropriate locations for cell phone use - these include restaurants, theaters, and moving vehicles. I don't know why somebody talking on a cell phone in a restaurant should bug us any more than any unusually animated conversation would, or a smoker, or somebody eating mashed potatoes with his fingers. Cell phones in theaters, however, should be banned, and their users killed, unless they're giant cloned carnivores, or doctors on call. Moving vehicles? I don't see how talking on a cell phone is any more dangerous than listening to the radio, having lunch, shaving, applying makeup, or arguing politics with a passenger in the back seat. Unless we're power cell phone users, barking commands to brokers and underlings, many of us feel somewhat guilty about having one. We say things like, "I always turn it off in a theater," "I always pull over to use it," "I don't use mine that much," "I only use it in emergencies," or even, "I NEVER use my cell phone. Can't make me!" DON'T POINT THAT PHONE AT ME!As cell phones become ubiquitous, our mixed feelings about them will slowly begin to fade. The cell phone will become like the wristwatch or microwave, another thing that everyone has and doesn't think twice about. When that happens, marketers will probably start cramming more functions into cell phones to make them more exciting. They'll combine a cell phone with a wristwatch, then add some nail clippers, a compass, and a comb. Already, there's been a new wrinkle. Last year, Dutch police discovered a cache of cell phone guns during a drug raid. According to ABCNews.com, "[B]eneath the digital face lies ... a phone gun capable of firing four rounds ... with a touch of the otherwise standard keypad" ("Deadly Decoys," December 6, 2000). These phone guns haven't appeared in the United States yet, but they could give a whole new meaning to road rage. But that's probably not the real fear either. As a spokesman for the Amsterdam police said, "These are very difficult to make. We believe experts are involved." Well, yes, any time experts are involved we should be afraid - very afraid. Ian Shoales lives in San Francisco, where - oops, sorry, I'm cutting out, I'll have to call you back. |
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