It seems dangerous to spelling. I have read more gibberish posted by someone 'writing' on a cell phone with autocomplete than posted by idiots typing in earnest.
As for:
As dangerous as homosexuality? As dangerous as liberalism?
Yes, every bit.
It is the tool by which such things (ideas) propagate.
With the proper software (Facebook, for one) the harridan gossip of the back yard fence can now travel to multiple outposts at light speed. Such allegations can literally go 'round the world twice before the truth gets off the back step.
Liberalism loves its unfounded allegations, lies, distortions, and has long been the tribe of smearing the opposition before they can defend or even shed light on the truth.
The smart phone, texting, Facebook, and other such media are perfect for such distributions, including, but not limited to, flash mobs, cyber bullying, wrecking the reputation of your high school age daughter (even though she was sitting next to you working on her homework when the alleged behaviour occurred), not to mention distracting pedestrians from traffic and the motoring population from the task at hand--driving the effing car.
Perhaps you see some bonus in that, some eugenic gain in purifying the species, but those eliminated might be valuable members of society who become collateral damage of such a war on situational awareness.
Not every person I have seen in the last year on a phone was driving like an idiot (some were walking like one), but every person I have seen driving like an idiot was on a phone.
That said, like any technology, in the proper setting it is wonderful. Who knows, some day someone may have their diseased appendix removed in a remote location in time to save their life because someone could be guided (between selfies) through the operation, provided the battery doesn't give out first.
In the meantime, the things we used to learn, the things we might need to know some day, we now relegate to the machine, left idling in the cloud--the great repository of human knowledge, in the assumption that the server won't be down, the battery will last and that we will have the bandwidth we need to access it when we need it. Why learn anything but how to work the new model of phone?
Wow. You take everything you said and apply to it that there
is an exact and equal opposite it’s really not that bad.
For example:
“The smart phone, texting, Facebook, and other such media are perfect for such distributions”
Distribution would not be limited to just one side. The Mormans
are using this tech to the limit and they are growing.
But the most glaring examples of all are the historic reactions
to previous breakthroughs in technology. People were
saying
pretty much the same thing about television and radio.
Go back and look at alternating current all the way
to good ol Rock and Roll and it’s been one threat to
humankind after another. I’ll tell you this, the next
step in this is probably going to be something along the
lines of computer implants or neural tapping.
I would have to agree that there are changes
in our social behaviors but this cell phone craze is just
the step before the next “disaster to humanity”. It’s not
going to stop because it’s what generates wealth. We could
go on and on tossing theories around but in the end I think
in the near future we’ll look back and say “ compared to this crap, smart phones weren’t nothing”.