From the just-released Pew survey about American attitudes and practices regarding their mobile phones:
“Cell phones can help prevent unwanted personal interactions – 13% of cell owners pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the people around them.”
For information and education of those 13% of cell phone owners, here is what I know about you because you engage in this practice:
- You are rude.
- You are disrespectful.
- You are cowardly.
- You are ignorant
- You are a liar.
I am sure these same people will happily enter their opinions on blogs about what is and isn’t right about America, despite having avoided all but the most sanitized interaction with it—using pseudonyms to hide their identities, of course. They don’t want interaction, the mutual exchange of opinions, or to have to deal with anyone who might shatter their ossified, unshakable view of the world with a different perspective.
The rudeness that results in approximately one out of five people you meet on the street ignoring the world to chatter on a cell phone—and I am including the genuine users here—is gradually transforming American society into something that isn’t society at all: an unconnected, uncommunicative, isolated crowd of alienated individuals, each in their own self-maintained sensory bubble. The seeds were planted when the Sony Walkman allowed joggers, teens and the self-absorbed to tune out the world while they were out in it, sometimes resulting in one of them getting run over by a bus. Now, despite those occasional warnings about the perils of tuning out reality, there is an entire generation of less-than-acculturated individuals who regard having to acknowledge other human beings as a nuisance.
You have contempt for me, and you haven’t even met me yet! It used to be that people had to know me to dislike me that much.
Having made the decision to make certain that their narrow, dark little world isn’t penetrated by anyone else’s light, the Pew 13% don’t even have the guts to be direct and open about it. They fake being busy, depending on the politeness of others to allow them to be rude. I know one thing about people who develop habits rooted in lies—they lose an aversion to lying. In addition to making Americans uncivil and isolated, the mobile phone is making them less trustworthy too.
It is not pre-ordained that the increasingly pervasive blessing and curse of technology must devolve us into worse human beings. Sometimes we can reverse a dangerous trend just by noticing it. As little as twenty years ago, there were towns in America where people routinely smiled, nodded, and even said “Hello!” and “Good morning!” to strangers they encountered on the street. Sometimes that “Hello!’ became a conversation, and sometimes that conversation became a relationship. Or sometimes, miracles of miracles, the basic act of respect inherent in acknowledging a fellow citizen’s existence resulted in changed minds, altered opinions, and life-enriching wisdom.
Mobile phones haven’t been around very long. The new versions allow owners to carry a virtual office, library and entertainment center with them. Will the Pew 13% become the Pew 90% within the next 20 years?
Perhaps not, if we are clear enough in telling the 13% what jerks they are now.
Ethics Alarms 
Amen! How do we save our children and grandchildren? They are losing all social skills if we allow it to continue. Walking robots that will never know how to interact with each other. Scary.
Ha! Not even close. Humans are creatures that learn to adapt. Our children will adapt accordingly and their children will adapt accordingly. Imagine what your great grandfather would say about you and your devil ways.
Entropy still is in play. They may adapt, but that doesn’t mean that the result is better. We can adapt to restrictions on speech and political correctness, and many other detrimental things. We have adapted to increasing illiteracy. Without care, attention and management, it is far from certain that the adaptations of which you speak will result in a better world to live in.
…or worse.
Of course—though technology that is being adapted to by individuals resorting to dishonesty and social avoidance seems unlike to have that result. Unless you just don’t like people, in which case it’s just a matter of taste, I guess.
Would you mind giving me a shorter summary of the post. I was too busy reading other stuff to read it.
More seriously, good points.
I confess: I often walk around with headphones on (not to avoid talking to people, but so I have something to listen to). Twice, when the batteries died before I got home, I was accosted and dragged into conversations with strangers. Since I’m polite and, like my father, can talk about anything with anyone, I got roped into the long sales pitch for a damn phone and some older guy complaining about how the young people play music so loud in their cars (I completely agreed).
After that, I thought of my brother talking about working overnight at a gas station. It gave him ample time to read, and one of the books he chose was “Catcher in the Rye.” Half the customers said, “Hey, Catcher in the Rye.” I read that in high school. I didn’t get it but bla bla bla.”
He quoted part of the book none of those people seemed to remember. “I thought what I’d do is I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.”
I don’t think I’ve ever put the headphones on without music (and even with music, if someone tries to get my attention, I’ll take them off), but I DO try to keep the MP3 player charged. Maybe I AM a jerk, but I don’t think so (not all the time).
Also, you can’t tell who the crazy people are, anymore. Used to be easy: If someone was walking down the street by themselves, yet talking to someone as though they were there, then clearly that person had a very tenuous grip on reality. Now, if you look carefully, you see that they have a little device hooked over their ear that operates over their cell phone, which is presumably in their pocket. Then, again, maybe there is no cell phone in their pocket, and they really are crazy.
But, more to your point, Jack: Not so long ago I was standing on the sidewalk that runs along the street in front of the school I work in. It’s a very busy street, but I noticed that a woman driving down it had stopped in the middle of the street. There was no light or obstruction there, so at first I thought she was having a problem and maybe needed help. She did, but not any help I was in a position to offer, because I then saw that she was screaming into a cell phone, her free hand gesturing furiously. She was having an argument with someone on the other end of that phone, and had become so absorbed into it that she had apparently forgotten where she was or what she was about. As I said, it’s a busy street, two lanes in either direction, and she was blocking one of them. People were caught behind her, honking, trying to get around her, shouting out their windows at her. She was oblivious to it all. There have been jerk drivers as long as the have been cars, unfortunately, but this seemed to be taking it to a new level. For pity’s sake, woman, pay attention to where you are! Anyway, I’m on your side here, Jack.
Well, if the lady was going to lose track of where she was and what she was doing, at least her fail-safes kicked in. Much better that she came to a stop than obliviously rolled through a red light or a crosswalk and hurt someone.
–Dwayne
While I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written, Jack, I think there is another societal force in play here that might be even bigger–or you might just have it backwards.
We have been telling our kids for 20-30 years don’t talk to strangers because they might be trying to hurt you or kidnap you. Those kids who are now young adults have heard this for their entire lives and built up this habitual, insular behavior as a result. No one tells their kids at age 25 “It’s okay to talk to strangers now”, but even if they did, it would be difficult for the young adults to overcome that bias that’s been drilled into them.
In a sense, we are starting to reap what we have sowed with the emphasis on “stranger danger” that we’ve had for so many years.
And on a simpler premise, I wonder how much the 13%-20% in question here correlate with the population of people who are inherently shy and introverted (I know I’m one of them). If it’s a strong correlation, then the technology might not be the cause of anything–it might simply be a 21st-century form of behavior that has existed for thousands of years–the wallflowers can now bring their tiny 2″x5″ walls with them wherever they go, like a security blanket.
One that plays music!
–Dwayne
Dwayne has a major point. I’m one of those wallflowers, too. From the very earliest memories I’ve loved people and been inexplicably afraid of them at the same time. I think you err by imputing sinister motives for the behavior, Jack.