Rock Concert 2016
Sounds like a self-correcting problem. For the most part.
I don’t even own a cell phone....LOL....
Yeah? How many people are killed and injured for other reasons?
I am proud to say I have never taken a “selfie” even before the word was coined.
I don’t IM/Text and I *NEVER* talk on the phone while driving. I prefer email when I can get to it when I get to it.
I don’t FB (I have an account to look at my family’s pages but never post), I don’t twitter, snapchat or any of that stuff. I frequently forget my PDA at home and don’t even notice, except if I want to look up a price for something to get it cheaper at Best Buy.
You would think people would know: Keep as SMALL a interwebz footprint as humanly possible. No one needs to know you did a #2 at the Starbucks restaurant just now. But criminals will be happy to know you are in Cancun partying it up. Other criminals will be happy for the 2 out of 3 pieces of info they need to steal your identity (name and birthdate).
Summary: people are stupid and vain. Young people are REALLY stupid and REALLY vain.
Rock Concert 2016
No great loss. Perhaps it's natural selection, reborn.
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.
Cell phone distractions kill more than guns, and are approaching alcohol as the most common reason for accidents.
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.
I have a flip phone. Texting is so slow and tedious that I only send a few text messages each year.
It is my belief that the wise parent SHOULD train their child that the smartphone is a device who’s use requires responsible behavior. Just as prior generations taught there kids about responsible use of firearms, so do these modern devices.
These can cause significant life events when used improperly. A distracted driving use that can maim or kill, a sexting event that can mar a life thereafter. Modern tech gives us the two-edged sword of both power and damage. Our young need to be taught the mantra, the truism, that power REQUIRES responsible use.
“”With all due respect to Dr. Roberts, sounds like an addiction to me.””
My comment was going to be “it’s an addiction worse than tobacco.” It truly is an addiction. They have to absolutely have that crazy appliance in their hands no matter what. I am way past the age of needing a phone when I go to the bathroom or grocery shop or drive a car or for any other reason.
What do you suppose would happen in this country if legislation was proposed to take away all cell phones? There’s no protection for them in the Constitution - except for one they would manufacture exactly like they did for abortion.
The users of them wouldn’t be sitting home bitching on their computers. They’d be surrounding the capitol in protest. Gun owners rights are threatened all the time and have they ever seen us in mass protest? No and it’s way past time!
One good EMP from a major solar flare or otherwise (nuclear stratospheric air blast), and your cellphone becomes an expensive coaster.
I use mine for a portable computer and get all messed up when the phone rings.
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.”
Like much in the media, this level of overwrought hand-wringing is a bit overblown. Substitute something else that also distracts drivers from the road ahead, such as "talking" or "eating", and re-read the sentences above:
According to a 2012 Time magazine study, 84 percent of people around the world said they couldn’t go a single day without talking. Clearly, they mean it...
Collectively, Americans open their mouths to talk 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 talk a few times an hour. A Baylor University study found that the average female college student spends ten hours per day talking.
< “That’s astounding,” said Baylor’s lead researcher James Roberts, Ph.D. “As talking increases, addictions to this seemingly indispensable act become an increasingly realistic possibility.”
One of them is my 22-year-old son. I sleep with an actual security blanket and a stuffed cat.
Cell phones are killing us the same way guns are killing us - individual acts of stupidity/maliciousness ....
Buy a cellphone for someone you hate ?
As a matter of fact, our cell-plan allows for 500 minutes of cellphone use, and we get nights and weekend free, and we still have never even approached 150 minutes for ALL usage during one month. My portion of the usage has always been between 0 and 20 minutes ... my wife has more friends than I do. People in my office know not to call my cellphone after work hours, but to call my landline, which has an answering machine. When I come home from work, my cellphone goes on the charger with the ringer turned off, and doesn't get looked at again until the next morning when I turn it back on and put it in my pocket.
It's an emergency phone only.
Wife and I were sitting at a light this morning. The person on our left was the first up in the left turn lane. She was staring down into her lap. Left arrow turned green. It took two horn toots from the car behind her to get her attention. Not quick toots either. She finally raised her head, saw the green light, and pulled off from the light.
I’m not saying she was texting, but...she was texting.