I wrote a piece a while ago about cell phones and the way people are now totally addicted to them and want to pursue this topic a bit further. Being older and having memories of life before cell phones, I feel that I am somewhat qualified to discuss this topic at least from a personal point of view.
My concerns are many in this particular area. For starters, this has the makings of a good novel and maybe even a series about how the World population was taken over by cell-phones and humans lost the ability to think for themselves or even communicate one on one without consulting their phone first. Conversations, even with the person right next to you were conducted through your phone not verbally as we would normally expect. People would receive calls from “Interested Parties” telling them what to wear, what to eat, what to do today after work, what groceries to buy and what shop to buy them at and on and on until in the end, humans lost the ability to think or reason without being told by their phones. In fact, they became brainwashed into being totally dependant on their phones for everything.
Does this sound familiar? Something from the world of George Orwell or H.G. Wells of years gone by. Take a look around you the next time you are in a crowd of people or a Supermarket. You can almost guarantee that any kids even the very youngest have their face glued to a phone or a tablet even as they are walking around with their parents as they circle the aisles. In many cases, the Parents are either also talking on the phone, checking for messages or even consulting their grocery list which is where, you got it, on their phone. I read somewhere that the art of penmanship is rapidly dying out as more and more people use either a phone or a computer to write with and many younger kids, have not mastered the basics of writing. Even in my day, penmanship quickly deteriorated when ball point pens were invented but at least virtually everyone could read and write. Now it is questionable in both cases. Personally, I prefer to use a computer to write with because at least, everyone can read the words which is not necessarily true of my handwriting which sometimes verges on the point of ineligible due to my hasty scribbling. I was watching an English Premier League football match the other day and saw several people in the crowds checking their phones so it is not just this country that has the problem.
Getting back to the point of the blog. I can only imagine what the home life of an average family is in this day and age. Personal conversations with friends take precedence over everything else which includes both verbal and texting. I wonder how many families have rules at home of how much and when their kids can use their phones? At the meal table? During family conversations? When the family is doing something together and on and on. I would imagine that the worst punishment that any kid can get is to have their cell phone taken away.
Where is this all leading to? How long before we become a Nation so reliant on our phones that we find it impossible to operate without them. I am lucky that being very old and those that are in my generation are in the same boat, that we do not have the same need for a cell phone other for maybe as a safety net in case something happens to us such as, “Help, I have fallen over and can’t get back up” or worse yet, “Help, I think I am having a heart attack”.
We are being controlled and manipulated by “Big Business” in a very subtle way as we are bombarded from all sides with truths, untruths, false advertising and claims to do this or buy that and every conceivable pressure that is possible. All because of our reliance on our phones.
How do I end this blog? I predict that things will only get worse and that this is exactly what the Powers That Be are very happy with especially the way things are falling out. Whether they actually foresaw this is anybody’s guess but I bet someone was smart enough to figure this out to be another way to control the masses. Did I mention that the only calls I answer is if I recognize the name. If not, they are not going to get to me like they are to the rest of you guys…
Switch off the phone and see what the rest of the world looks like.
Written 12//7/2017
Now, I’m not far behind you in years and I am in total agreement. I remember that one time you mentioned that you are not a particularly religious person and I respect your honesty there. It is my opinion that as society falls farther into secularism that a large number of people are turning to technology as their religion with a great many already having replaced God with cell phones, tablets, etc….A sad state of affairs indeed…
I think that a part of the problem is that people see the physical aspects of the phone and all of it’s messages and suggestions as opposed to the mental belief in God or some other deity. After all, religion and cellphones are all a form of brainwashing, the one very easy to own and to hold and full of ideas and suggestions and the other, something taught to you as a young kid when you are the most impressionable which you never ever have any physical contact with as God can only be in your mind.
Yes… i, for one, am glad i am older and not of the current generation! Seems like all they do is text and talk on the phone (without looking at the real world). Are they texting deep insights about reality? No… it is mostly gibberish about superficial things. They don’t realize that their words are artificial symbols (that merely represent reality)… and not the real thing. You can’t hug the word “dog.” “God,” to most people, is an absorbed image or symbol surrounded (and associated with) other absorbed images/mental fabrications.
I wonder how many “older” people feel the way we do about this subject and others very similar in this modern world? It definitely is a world so much changed from the one I grew up in.
The generations of the modern world has lost the history of “ink, pen, paper and handwriting.” Emoticons is the name of their playgrounds and their “potency of words unknown.” some months ago I met with a group of my friends I had not seen for quite a long time. And we came to the same topic in discussion, and a lot was talked about the technological world and the youths of today. And most of them said they believed that at some points in another 30 to 40 years from now, the technology will collapse and crash, since that inventors may arrive at a dead end of technology inventions. And most of us came to the conclusion that we believe that the world may go many decades back when life was more interesting than it is today. Well it will take some generations who are not here yet to see these future happenings. Fingers cross I hope this unhealthy world will change one day.
The problem is that only us older folk recognize the problems that are in out future. The younger generations does not know anything different. The way I see it, either global warming will take care of things or the cell phones will. In either case, we may not have a world in 30-40 years time…
I am reading your blog in my phone! How ironic !
I do agree though with your observations. My granddaughters come to visit and look at their phone almost the entire time.
It won’t be long before newly born babies will have implants in their brain to be permanently wired up . When that happens, the world will be lost to us individuals.