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Symposium: Cell Phones- Modern convenience or social scourge?
The Prometheus Institute ^ | 9/28/2006 | Justin Hartfield & M Harrison

Posted on 09/28/2006 9:24:21 AM PDT by tang0r

We switch off our cellphones during movies because to be distracted from the film would mean we are wasting the price of our ticket, so why do leave our cellphone on during our life? Surely real life is more important than a movie? But for most cellphone users, it isn't. The cellphone is a means of escaping reality, it is the Almighty TV game show host constantly asking you to "make a deal" with your time. If you don't like what you're doing right now, just wait a couple minutes and that glorious cellphone will ring, offering you another opportunity to do something else you don't want to do - just in a different location.

(Excerpt) Read more at prometheusinstitute.net ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: cellphones
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To: tang0r

If I was in sales, I would always have my phone on - but I'm not. Meanwhile, it is hardly ever even on my person. I'll go to where it is (usually in my car in the garage) and see if I have any messages and return them if they matter.

I carry a cell phone when I ride my bike.

Oh, and my wife and I dumped our land line three years ago. The cell phone is the only way people can get in touch with me short of email or actually dropping by.

I figure if a loved one dies I'll hear about it soon enough.


21 posted on 09/28/2006 10:21:50 AM PDT by RobRoy (Islam is a greater threat to the world today than Naziism was in 1937.)
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To: tang0r

The problem isn't cell phones. The problem is too many rude, self-centered people who are inconsiderate and oblivious to others around them.


22 posted on 09/28/2006 10:39:41 AM PDT by LexBaird (Another member of the Bush/Halliburton/Zionist/CIA/NWO/Illuminati conspiracy for global domination!)
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To: tang0r
A few weeks ago I attended a program on fiction writing. One of the panelists mentioned that a great many detective fiction novels being written today are laid in the 1960s and 1970s, because the plots are impossible in a world of cell phones.
23 posted on 09/28/2006 10:44:57 AM PDT by JoeFromSidney (My book is out. Read excerpts at www.thejusticecooperative.com)
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To: tang0r

I've never had a cell phone. I keep sort of meaning to get one but I'm just not motivated enough.

My work is such that when I leave for the day, it's over. My boss doesn't need to reach me. I don't have kids and email seems to work just fine for long distance relatives and friends. Repair people always give me a 1 - 2 hour window so I never need to really hang around the phone.

Unlike a lot of women, I don't enjoy long, pointless phone conversations with my friends. Call me to set up something up or to say that you're coming over - that's it.

Everybody is different.


24 posted on 09/28/2006 10:48:55 AM PDT by Gingersnap
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To: tang0r

Hang up and drive.


25 posted on 09/28/2006 10:50:07 AM PDT by demsux
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To: Hemingway's Ghost
"Cellphones are fine when this one simple rule is followed: don't let your conversation on your cellphone interfere with where you are or what you are doing."

EGGSACTLY Batman.

Cellphones are a tool, a very useful one. (especially the newer ones with cameras and PDAs built in)

However, people who use their phones in inappropriate places and situations and especially those who use them in a loud manner to draw attention to themselves are "tools" as well.

26 posted on 09/28/2006 10:51:43 AM PDT by Mad Dawgg ("`Eddies,' said Ford, `in the space-time continuum.' `Ah,' nodded Arthur, `is he? Is he?'")
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To: Gingersnap
I have one (prepaid) for emergencies.

When my car broke down it sure was nice to be able to call AAA from the comfort of inside the car rather then traipse a couple of miles in 40 degree twilight to find a phone.

If I had kids it would undoubtedly get more use but as it is I have trouble using up my 100 minutes a year.

27 posted on 09/28/2006 10:57:59 AM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (De inimico non loquaris sed cogites)
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To: Mad Dawgg
However, people who use their phones in inappropriate places and situations and especially those who use them in a loud manner to draw attention to themselves are "tools" as well.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The biggest tools are the ones who change lanes without looking . . . because looking would take them away from their scintillating cellphone conversation. I had a broad do this to me yesterday on a major highway---she made a no-look lane change from the right lane to the center lane . . . a real slow one, too---because she was just la-ti-da-ing away on her cell phone. Meanwhile, I'm in the middle lane ON MY MOTORCYCLE, laying on the horn, revving up my pipes, trying to get this fat friggen broad to look the eff up before she clocks me.

28 posted on 09/28/2006 11:07:26 AM PDT by Hemingway's Ghost (Spirit of '75)
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To: TalonDJ

"Cell phones keep us more closely connected."

That's all well and good, but I really have no desire to be "connected" to the guy/gal in line behind me at the supermarket talking at the top of his lungs on his phone. I think that is what has people ticked off about cell phones, second only to the idiot in his/her car, jabbering away and weaving all over the road.


29 posted on 09/28/2006 11:08:39 AM PDT by NRA1995 (Clinton "tried", 3000 died)
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To: tang0r
I like the rebuttal. Some of us love our cellphones. Mine is on my person 99% of the day. I also keep it on vibrate 99% of the day. When the phone rings and I recognize a person I don't feel like talking to, I let it go to voicemail. There is also a magic button on the side that ends the vibrating so I don't have to be embarrassed.

Cell phones are wonderful. My cell phone allows me to actually have contact with my family on the other side of the country. If I had to wait until I got home, it would be too late to call. As it is, I can call while riding the bus home.

My cell phone also allows me to get all my husband's calls. When you only get a call from your husband a few times a month, tell me you wanna be waiting by your home phone that whole time. I'll leave it at that or I might say something nasty about people who would demean me for having a way to have contact with my husband.

30 posted on 09/28/2006 11:31:30 AM PDT by Kaylee Frye
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To: tang0r
...why do leave our cellphone on during our life?

So I can find it by calling it when I've misplaced it, of course.

31 posted on 09/28/2006 11:33:54 AM PDT by untenured
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To: Hemingway's Ghost
"The biggest tools are the ones who change lanes without looking . . ."

We were in Cleveland a couple of weeks back and in a busy area with mulit-lane streets. We came to an intersection and the traffic was really fast and congested. The Light turned green and we entered the intersection with several other cars in the adjoining lanes.

All of the sudden we hear a loud beeping horn from a vehicle to our right rear. A SUV loaded down with a soccer mom and 5 or 6 kids pulls up and rolls down the window and the soccer mom proceeds to yell at us for running a light and endangering her kids.

Now all the cars in our direction entered the intersection at the same time so apparently we all decide to run the light at the same time (from a dead stop). Best part is she is driving and looking back towards us and yelling while driving at over 40 miles an hour and had a CELL PHONE to her ear the whole time.

32 posted on 09/28/2006 11:38:28 AM PDT by Mad Dawgg ("`Eddies,' said Ford, `in the space-time continuum.' `Ah,' nodded Arthur, `is he? Is he?'")
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To: Mad Dawgg
Best part is she is driving and looking back towards us and yelling while driving at over 40 miles an hour and had a CELL PHONE to her ear the whole time.

EGREGIOUS! Obviously, she also suffers from Self-Righteous Bitch Syndrome (SRBS).

33 posted on 09/28/2006 11:50:20 AM PDT by Hemingway's Ghost (Spirit of '75)
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