It is crack cocaine in the palm of your hand. It is outrageously addictive and readily available. If you do not own one you are no one. These handheld soul suckers are commonly referred to as cell phones.
Black, red, green and blue these handheld devices come in any shape, size and color imaginable. The allure is to have one better than your neighbor. Technology fools the consumer to buy the latest and greatest. If your phone is only a few months old it is time to get a new one: one that can restart your heart if you happen to pass out from over stimulation. It is water in a dry desert and food in a famine. It is your life. Leaving it at home is reason enough to turn back around no matter how far you’ve traveled.
“At the entrance stand the public waits in a long queue in order to witness the accomplishment of the magical operation par excellence:”(Barthes, Roland) the unveiling of the new Iphone. The god of all mobile phones. People will wait in line for the unveiling, often foregoing work and other responsibilities like childcare and school.
Face to face interaction is no longer necessary, and in fact is becoming the norm. Your shiny hand held personal assistant can do everything for you. The pocket genius can figure out your restaurant tip, find your friends gps location, entertain you, take photographs, transfer and wire money, play music, level furniture, simulate reality, gauge speed, countdown days, and inform you of the song and artist currently playing on the latest phone commercial.
It is a status symbol conforming you and the rest of the world. You can pay as you go or invest an arm and a leg to afford one. Even the President of the United States refuses to give up his life link to the outside world, something no other president has held on to. It is that vital to our existence that we can’t let go. And it’s good that we can’t let go. The government can track our precise location, playback incriminating threats, and add on charges to already exuberant phone bills that only a PHD can decipher.
Instead of talking on the phone or writing letters like our forefathers now we can text. Not only can we text fragments and laughter LOL we can see pictures of whom we’re texting. We create symphonic orchestras to inform us of incoming calls and messages. We can create a ring tone that plays loud enough for everyone on the train to hear and we can yell back into the device just as loud. As if the person on the other end were missing a hearing aid battery.
As we can see cell phones are the reigning cool. People young and old can be seen with the device permanently in their hand as if surgically attached. It is our very lifeblood.
Kerri
Sent from my Iphone
Ha, ha! The very last line is the real punchline of the piece. Before that, you move a little too much at the level of describing the general phenomenon with really getting down to the kind of sensory details Barthes trades in. You know he'd totally thrive on the tactile experience of the touchscreen, leaving clunky old buttons behind. Then you'd be doing something about the topic nobody's heard before. But, on the plus side, the line you've chosen from RB is a really good one.
ReplyDeleteIronic, isn't it, that your piece on the new connectedness is completely link-free? Especially since there is so, so, so much to be found about iPhones and cell phones and the like online.