A few weeks ago my cellphone was stolen from my office. The drama! The panic!
In 2007 the total number in mobile phone subscriptions around the world was 3.3 billion. That is half the population of planet Earth. At least the somewhat human part of it.
On the day my phone was stolen, there was one subscription less in the world and I didn’t know what to do. All my client’s numbers were on there and I never bothered to synchronize my SIM card with my laptop. Additionally, I had an extra memory chip, lots of neat music and an awesome photo collection of pure nonsense stored in this little baby.
I really liked that phone. While I had it I called people with video conferencing, checked my gmail inbox, recorded voice memos, played with the annoying camera lense cap, downloaded the most awesome versions of Block Breaker and Solitaire. And then it was just gone.
The first thing that you will notice after your phone has been stolen is how all of a sudden, IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT.
- It’s your fault your mother/girlfriend/wife couldn’t reach you.
- It’s your fault you bought an expensive phone.
- It’s your fault you left the phone in your private, secluded, supposedly safe office room.
- It’s your fault you didn’t call back whomever left that voice message on your phone earlier that day.
- And it’s also your fault that now you’re without a phone for a while.
Once you get over all that, revelation sets in and you slowly start to remember how life was like a long time ago before everyone had cell phones.
Friends visited us more often
Before there were mobile phones, people just came over to my house, knocked on the door and we hung out together. If I wasn’t home, they’d leave a note at the door and when I received it I’d simply head over to the location they said they’d be at. And guess what, they’d really be there.
We committed more to the things we promised
Today, we make a million promises on a daily basis. “Yeah, man. Let’s totally do this next weekend. We have to hang out, for sure”. Weekend comes and your phone rings. No worries. No need to commit. Clog the nose, cough once into the speaker briefly after picking up and claim sickness. Or simply don’t pick up the phone. You can always claim that you never received the call and that you were waiting all day for his or her call. What a shame that you could not meet this weekend. Again.
Remember how it was before the mobile revolution? Excuses like that didn’t work. If I didn’t show up, I’d look like a rather unreliable friend. However, thoughts of not showing up never would have occurred to me back then. If we made plans, we’d set our minds on it and plan ahead all week. When the time came, we jumped on our bikes and drove an hour to the lake. Beer and hamburgers galore.
We talked more to people. Real people
SMS. ‘Nuff said.
Silence
I can be reached everywhere, now. Toilet, Bath, Beach, Restaurant, Bed, Supermarket, Bar, Car, EVEN WHILE I’M PLAYING ON MY XBOX! “Hey, Cytizen. Just turn off your phone.” Yeah. Right. Ever heard of voice mail? And don’t get me started on all these obnoxious ring tones and people who speak loud enough for the whole bus to listen in on their conversation. Have I mentioned how annoying push-to-talk is?
We actually had something to talk about
Before I was able to share my diatribes instantly with anyone I had in my phone memory, I actually looked forward to meeting people just so that I could tell them about my most recent misadventures. It would make for hours of pure entertainment at the bar or at a friend’s house. Nowadays, we just regurgitate the same things we already told each other last week via SMS. We just add more words to it.
I may be exaggerating a bit, but you have to admit that life was just a little bit more interesting before we went fully mobile. I do acknowledge that being able to dial 911 from just about anywhere is a big advantage. Emergency situations are far less threatening when you have a cell phone ready to call for back up. From a social perspective, however, cell phones just ruined it all.
