Our cellphones are killing us

NY Post ^ | June 18, 2016 | Maureen Callahan

[upchuck]

We are, it seems, long past the moment where there’s nothing worth doing unless we’re on the phone — photographing it, uploading it, texting it, tweeting it.

And it’s killing us...

In 2009, Deborah Matis-Engle was sentenced to six years in prison for texting while driving — more specifically, she was paying bills online — and smashing into another vehicle, which burst into flames and killed the driver inside.

Just months after the crash, while awaiting trial, California Highway Patrol spotted Matis-Engle texting while driving on two separate occasions.

“This collision had absolutely no impact on her,” the prosecutor said...

According to the CDC, over 8 people are killed and 1,161 are injured each day in the US by distracted driving. Texting while driving is now the leading cause of teenage deaths in this country. Anecdotally, emergency rooms are seeing an uptick of injuries to “petextrians” — people who text while walking and have, say: run into a 300-pound bear (California, 2012), fallen into a fountain at the mall (Pennsylvania, 2011), or fallen on to train tracks (Pennsylvania, 2012)...

According to a 2012 Time magazine study, 84 percent of people around the world said they couldn’t go a single day without their cellphones. Clearly, they mean it...

Collectively, Americans check their phones 8 billion times a day. For the average person, that shakes out to 46 times a day. A July 2015 Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Americans check their phones a few times an hour. A Baylor University study found that the average female college student spends ten hours per day on the phone.

“That’s astounding,” said Baylor’s lead researcher James Roberts, Ph.D. “As cellphone functions increase, addictions to this seemingly indispensable piece of technology becomes an increasingly realistic possibility.”

[rlmorel]

As someone who works in IT, I find them indispensable, flashlight, converter applications, looking up information, having an instantly available camera to take pictures of dialog boxes and configuration instructions, etc.

Out of work, I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, and music during my drive home, while I wash dishes, and do other mundane tasks. I use GPS, I find restaurants, I look for store hours of operation, etc.

On average, I probably send 0-3 texts a day, including ones where you are simply answering someone.

I probably make one phone call every few days. I am not now, and have never been, a huge phone talker.

I also carry a Swiss Army knife in my pocket, and I take that out between 3-10 times a day...slicing boxes, opening letters, unscrewing or prying something, cutting a piece of steak on the grill to ensure it is done, or slicing a pill in half.

So I view a cell phone as a valuable tool and time saver, and I treat it intellectually much the same as my Swiss Army knife.

But I also agree cell phones are destroying a piece of society that shouldn't be destroyed, and that is the direct interaction with other people, even with people you don't know. It is this:

and this...

And it is hard to deny the truth (and the humor) in this:

The cartoon is interesting, because I can relate. I was on a plane a while back, and some woman was having a loud argument with a flight attendant. I became aware that there was a forest of cell phones, held up above seat backs, recording it. As I looked forward towards the loud voices, I could see this swarm of rectangles, each displaying a small video screen showing the same event taking place. There was something I found infinitely creepy about that.

There is a generation of people now who have never seen many wonderful things with their own eyes. They only see things framed through the video capture screen of their phone. They didn't see their kid graduate, their phone did. They didn't see that concert with their own eyes. They didn't see that party, they saw a video.

I love technology, but there is something that is very narcissistically creepy about all this, especially (in my opinion) things like Facebook. Sure, I am a codger, but of all the people in my circle of life, I was the one who was first onboard with this stuff. First computer, first digital camera, first CD player, first digital music player, I had a Newton (three of them)...but when cell phones made it big...I just stopped there. I was the last one to get a cell phone, and when I did get it, it was because it had the list of things you outlined in your post. When the iPhone came out, I was on it for those things. (not to mention that I had been carrying a pager for twenty years, and found I could not use public phones anymore. I used to know where every phone could be found in a five mile radius around where I happened to be at any time, because I had to be able to respond. But one by one, those phones disappeared and stopped working.)

I love technology. I am no Luddite.

But with the cell phone technology...I won't have my face in it during a meal, or when I am with another person. I won't use it in a restaurant or public setting, even on a train. If I have to take a call or make one, I excuse myself and leave to go somewhere I can be alone. I do listen to music and audiobooks nearly constantly, but...I make sure that, in the right situations, I pull my Bose sound canceling buds out so I can hear what should be heard.

I don't often frivolously call or text people, and if someone calls or texts me, and I don't want to answer...I don't. But the problem I see is, there are a lot of people who are ruled by the technology. And, as this article points out, they are ruled with it while they drive their cars, and that makes me crazy.

[upchuck]

My boss at one of the places where I volunteer has her cell phone, her tablet and her laptop computer lined up side by side across her desk. Says she’s, “Ready for anything.”

I wonder how she gets any work done. LOL

[bgill]

I own one but make maybe two calls a year on it. It’s mainly for emergencies. It came in handy when half our stuff got fried from a lightning strike last month.

[cloudmountain]

I don’t even own a cell phone....LOL....

I have a cell phone for roadside emergencies ONLY. Well, I do use it, as a clock, when waiting for someone and my watch is still at home.

I've used my cell phone for TWO roadside emergencies. THEY made it worth my while.

[freedumb2003]

>>Of course not. Perspective is the enemy of cherry picking.<<

If you are suggesting that anti-PDA/driving laws are analogous to anti-gun laws (if that is the foundation of your question), you are using the wrong analogy.

The proper analogy for anti-PDA/driving laws is DRUNK DRIVING laws. Or do you feel those are government overreach?

So if I cite the number of drunk driving deaths and suggest some legislation (assume this is before current laws) that would be cherry picking?

[redgolum]

Cell phone distractions kill more than guns, and are approaching alcohol as the most common reason for accidents.

[JBW1949]

I have OnStar in my vehicles and a landline at home, so I have no use for a cell phone...

[freedumb2003]

>>Sounds like we need Moms Against Cell Phones to take up arms. Oh, wait. What about sipping a cola while driving? Burger? Changing radio stations? Lighting a cigar? Turning around to get the kids to settle down? <<

Scientifically incorrect. When you operate a PDA to speak on the phone, text, etc. as opposed to listening to musing, eating, etc. you use different parts of your brain.

The part for talking on the phone and texting (the latter also requires taking your eyes off the road for extended periods) directly conflicts with the part needed to driving. If you are a human being you cannot overcome this. It is as bad and the same as drunk driving — you can’t overcome that either.

[redgolum]

I am surprised they allowed you to do that. Every job I have held since 1998 required that I had a cell phone, and be available 24 hours a day. It was a condition of employment.

[surroundedbyblue]

Lucky you! My husband desperately wishes he could trash his but his job requires it. Even when vacationing in Europe last summer, the idiots could not leave him alone. And of course, they thought nothing of emailing & texting him the day our daughter was born. All of their self-important BS. Drives me nuts

[freedumb2003]

>>I’ve used my cell phone for TWO roadside emergencies. THEY made it worth my while. <<

As much as I am against PDA talking/texting while driving, a PDA/cell is a very important thing to have for emergencies and even for convenience. Talking GPS do not use the part of your brain that talking in a phone conversation does (strange but true that it is NOT the part you use in in-person conversation).

The first time, a million years ago, my wife’s car failed on the road I got her a cell. But she and I agree we NEVER PDA talk/text while driving.

[Foundahardheadedwoman]

‘I don’t even own a cell phone....LOL....’

Me either. Sold the farm, only reason I had one was in case of break down or accident. Never learned to text and found out one day by accident that the thing had a camera on it. I feel like I am surrounded by zombies these days.

[rockrr]

Thanks for the thoughtful post rlmorel. It’s all about controlling the technology, not letting the technology control us.

[OrangeHoof]

I doubt the 10 hours/day stat. Women would not get anything done if they were occupied by the phone that much.

I do wonder if we will be able to see the phone videos at the Pulse club when the shooter came in. There’s one out there but I am almost sure it is fake.

[JBW1949]

I was never asked to get one...I had a land line on my desk and that is what was used along with video conference capabilities...(I retired from GE)

[rktman]

Well, what about putting on make up?😊

[Rufii]

I have a flip phone. Texting is so slow and tedious that I only send a few text messages each year.

[freedumb2003]

You just perfectly described my position on this whole subject.

Useful and needed but within a context and as support devices not controlling your life devices.

Life is for living, not recording.

Keep as small an internet footprint as possible.

[freedumb2003]

>>Well, what about putting on make up?<<

Not good, but for different reasons. That is more like reading a book while driving.

[Tucker39]

I knew a man, now deceased, who, many years ago was walking from one building to another at a large corporation. The buildings were separated by 100 yards of land and a RR spur track.

Engrossed in reading a report as he walked, the man was oblivious to an oncoming switching locomotive. He walked out in front of it and it hit him, with diesel horns blaring. It was only moving approximately 15mph, and only a corner hit him and he was bounced off, but he was hospitalized for weeks, after nearly dieing from his injuries.

The best part of the story is that as a result of the RR encounter, he surrendered his life to Christ, and lived for Him the last 30+ years of his life.