• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, October 26, 2004

I used to talk on the phone. In an office. Where it was quiet. And I could hear you. And you could hear me. Now, I take calls from people who sound like they are in the midst of a prison riot or a 26-car pile up on the L.I.E. "You're breaking up" has replaced "have a nice day" as our universal farewell.

There are people who think that because I have a cell phone, I am obligated to carry it with me wherever and whenever I go. Just in case THEY have an overwhelming, immediate need to tell me something that more often than not could have waited until I was at a landline anyway. They say, "Well, I called your cell phone..." in a tone of voice that suggests that I am a sub-human form of life for not answering their call. I think these people are addicted to their mobiles and it's only going to get worse.

Not a day goes by without another announcement that somebody is about to market something that will make me even more of a mobile media hub. Just talking was not enough, now I am supposed to go online, take pictures, play games, do all my word processing, listen to MP3s, and pretty soon, watch television on something that started out as a telephone. All this on a keyboard that I can't read without stage-14 magnifiers.

These new devices are supposed to "empower" me to do things I don't want to do now anyway. For example, I don't want to watch videos of my kid's soccer game last Saturday, nor see snaps from somebody else's birthday party he went to.

If I want to download the new Green Day album, I sure as hell am not going to use up airtime to do it when I can do it at home in a tenth of the time and at no additional cost. I think anything smaller than 42 inches is not a suitable television platform anyway, so why would I want to squint at something 1.5 inches wide?

While I think portable DVD players (with headphones) are the greatest baby-sitter since Julie Andrews sang "Doe a deer, a female dear..." I think there is something pathologically wrong with an adult who has to have a phone, or the Internet or a TV signal on his or her person 24/7.

Whatever happened to quiet time? Whatever happened to reading a book? Or just looking out the window and watching the landscape slide by? Or just daydreaming. For a population plagued by too much to do and too little time, you would thing that we would welcome those rare meditative moments when we can stop and just veg out.

But thanks to microchips and satellites, you will feel compelled to watch a little TV, catch a movie, or sort out last summer's vacation photos when you could or perhaps should be trying to conjure up the nothingness that Buddha says is at the center of your soul.

Moreover, there is nothing "personal" about these portables. There was a time when the nosiest encounter on public transportation was the rustle of turning newspaper pages... now buses and trains are a cacophony of mobile phone conversations, the doink, doink of Gameboys, and soundtracks seeping annoyingly through headphones. It is significant that the Acela has only one quiet car on an entire train. And that conductors on commuter trains have to beg riders to speak quietly (and in a "civil voice") on their cell phones.

I love the idea of the $15 key ring device that surreptitiously shuts off TV sets. I tried to illegally buy a similar device that does the same for cell phones, but sadly, it did not work and I sent it back to Hong Kong.

How long before the bus driver turns and says, "If you are watching the first run of West Wing, please don't spoil it for those who prefer reruns, by revealing any part of the plot. Thank you, and uh, have a nice day."