It’s a cellfish world out there

I thought about writing on this topic awhile ago when I was inspired after watching a number of vintage Woody Allen movies several nights in a row.  I was struck by something so subtle, yet so apparent in today’s modern world (no, it wasn’t the continuous cerebral dialogue that seems to have vanished from many movies these days).  It was the absence of CELL PHONES.  As I absorbed the characters, their emotions, their troubles, their solutions, their conversations, I kept thinking to myself, “There is something weird going on here.  I cannot put my finger on it, but something is just not right.”  Mind you, it’s not like I have never seen a movie pre-cell phone era, duh, but there was something about these movies - perhaps because they had so much thoughtful dialogue in them - that it just popped in my head, “By George, they have no mobile devices.” 

What?  How did they live? How did we live?  (Actually, how would Al Pacino’s killer in “88 Minutes” get in touch with him back then?)  How about first, let’s address how curious it was to watch a movie, where people, intelligent, provocative, interested adults, actually conversed with each other.  They weren’t interrupted by a text message nor were they interrupting anyone else with creating a text message.  The characters in these movies looked each other in the eyes and actually talked. They gave “undivided attention” (what does that mean now? I fear it may be erased from Webster’s just as “Google” was placed in it officially) to one another.  No one came into a cafe and sat down and immediately put down a small silver device with lots of buttons or a touch screen onto the table with one eye on it while he or she greeted the friend.  There was no, “Hold on, I have to get this - sorry, excuse me, but it’s important” in the middle of their own important conversation.  During one of the films, I smiled at a scene where downtown in midst of hundreds of Manhattanites, every person actually walked paying attention to where he or she was going.  No one was looking down, punching in numbers or letters, or notes or checking messages.  People were just WALKING. It was bizarre. I cannot remember those days, I just cannot. 

My friends joke about the movie “Wall Street”.  Remember that big bag phone Michael Douglas had as he strolled along his beachfront property?  That meant he was one rich dude.  This country is way behind in the mobile world compared to the Asian countries as well as many European.  Wireless and instant access are ubiquitous over there.  Kids go to clubs and sit down and don’t even look at each other. Tables and tables of people talking on their cell phones don’t cause a wonder. That is the norm.

In the real world, we are being alerted of the dangers of brain cancer these little access devices may bestow upon us, they cause car accidents - so now there are laws against using them while driving in many states, we officially have to remind attendees at the movies, events, speeches, sit down dinners, and more, to please turn off your pagers (who has a pager anymore?) and cell phones.  These pieces of major technology, are becoming a major pain.  Heck, even Naomi Campbell has used hers for a weapon. 

I remember one summer day a large group of friends all gathered for brunch.  As each of them came and sat down, the first thing everyone did was pull out their BlackBerry or equivalent and plop it on the table.  There were more pieces of silver on the table than glasses.  One final guest sat down and said, “I refuse to take mine out.  You know why? Because I came here to see you all, not to take calls or make calls or receive or send messages.  If you can’t do that for me, I don’t know why I am even here.”  Dumbfounded we looked at each other like we were going to cry, not because of being scolded, but because we didn’t want to put our phones away.  Most didn’t. It didn’t matter.  It was apparent no one knew how to function without the security blanket of something else to pay attention to besides each other.

I wonder what it would it be like to live in a world where cell phones and BlackBerry’s and iPhones and Treo’s exist, but where we control them, they do not control us.  Friends, colleagues, strangers, pedestrians, drivers, family members all live in the “here and the now time”, not the mobile device time.  I wonder what it would be like to know that you are actually listening to and are engaged in words and actions with other beings.  Sigh.  That ship has sailed, it will never return.  But I do applaud those who do their best to make it that world again.