Saturday, July 28, 2012

Phone bound future

Those of you that know me will know that I had the same phone for about ten years. I got a new phone last November, top of the range one too. I like every other technology addict have enjoyed the games, the social network, the immediate access to crap I never wanted to know. I still however, detest people that pull phones out when seated at the table with you, or constantly use their phone to try to dispute every single thing you say. No one can be 100% right all the time, and just because you look it up on your phone does not make you right, The phone is right, but you're still a twat.
Phones were originally made to increase communication and socialising, how ironic it is that they now make us more antisocial than ever. No one talks to strangers anymore.
I was in a car driving recently, I was stopped at the lights and the guy in the car next to me said hello, now today's social response is to ignore him, and I nearly did, thinking him some kind of nutter, but than I stopped myself and said, 'no, this might be one of the few 'real' human beings left in todays society.' I said hello, and in those fleeting moments before the lights changed we had a brief conversation. I drove off smiling. Happy to know there are still people in Sydney like that, of course I naturally assumed he must be from out of town.
I went away recently to another country, I turned off my state of the art brand new fully equipped phone, it would have cost a fortune to run over there. I pulled out the 10 year old one, dusted it off and took that with me. I also had to take a camera with me, but I didn't mind. I prefer a real camera to a phone one any day. The batteries are made to last in cameras. Over there I only used my phone when I lost contact with the group, in a foreign country that is a necessity. My room mate used it more than I did, and she didn't use it that much either. I actually found it annoying that I had to carry the damn thing around. I would have been fine without it. Modern society binds you to your phones, makes you dependant on them, but you don't really need them, hell, before the 70's most people didn't even have land lines and they got on fine, they were tough back then and yet somehow from that we've all become phone dependant yuppie weaklings. I confess even I have an Internet gaming addiction, I am a weakling too.
When I returned to this country the first thing I did was turn my new phone back on, no it was not to use the features, it was to see if anyone cared enough to drive an injured person home. Alas no, I caught the train. As I was waiting for the train, I flicked through the phone book of my old phone one last time, looked at all those dead numbers that I never memorised, that would never ring again. I still morn the passing of the people behind those numbers, but I also think maybe they are being saved from something by not seeing how pathetic we have become and no doubt how much more pathetic we will be in the future.