WEBVTT NOTE 29. The Myth of the Cell-Phone Addiction 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.840 Chapter 29, The Myth of the Cell Phone Addiction, June 17, 2005 2 00:00:07.840 --> 00:00:14.400 Pundits and bloggers are addicted to decrying the supposed cell phone addiction of Americans. 3 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:19.080 Calls for government to do something about it can't be far behind, especially considering 4 00:00:19.080 --> 00:00:24.240 the other claims that cell phones give us tumors, gut our memories, and jackhammer our 5 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:25.960 brains. 6 00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:31.000 There are even reports of second-hand damage from others' cell phone use. 7 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:36.280 These articles go beyond merely claiming that cell phones are annoying and truly people 8 00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:40.640 could learn some manners here as in many other aspects of life. 9 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:46.180 As regards to this supposed addiction, this is a word attached to any habitual behaviors 10 00:00:46.180 --> 00:00:49.260 of others we do not like. 11 00:00:49.260 --> 00:00:53.600 What's interesting here are those who offer something like a Marxian-style critique of 12 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:55.540 cell phone use. 13 00:00:55.540 --> 00:01:01.280 We are alienated from society, we are told, and obviously tormented by loneliness and thereby 14 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:07.340 seek solidarity and community. But rather than seek out our genuine connection to others, 15 00:01:07.340 --> 00:01:13.800 we reach for technology, the very thing that alienated us to begin with. We grow ever more 16 00:01:13.800 --> 00:01:19.020 dependent on our gizmos but they ultimately disappoint because they only cause addiction 17 00:01:19.020 --> 00:01:27.620 to Machines and thereby Increase Alienation Also, we the oppressed long for empowerment 18 00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:33.220 and the ego boost generated by the sense of importance granted by the idea of receiving 19 00:01:33.220 --> 00:01:35.540 and sending cell phone calls. 20 00:01:35.540 --> 00:01:41.560 We can't stop using our cell phones and yet, they only further entangle us into an artificial 21 00:01:41.560 --> 00:01:45.740 world of machines created via the money matrix. 22 00:01:45.740 --> 00:01:51.700 Oh, just look at the cell phone people everywhere, surely this is the final stage of capitalism 23 00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:56.660 in which we ignore our brothers and sisters walking next to us but instead talk through 24 00:01:56.660 --> 00:02:00.260 electronic means to some distant party. 25 00:02:00.260 --> 00:02:02.060 And talk about what? 26 00:02:02.060 --> 00:02:03.060 About nothing! 27 00:02:03.060 --> 00:02:07.260 It's like so cool to be on the phone! 28 00:02:07.260 --> 00:02:10.700 You can make this sort of critique up about anything. 29 00:02:10.700 --> 00:02:16.260 Pepper the essay with references to Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and, to stay 30 00:02:16.260 --> 00:02:23.380 in good with the conservatives, the insufferable T.S. Eliot, finish it off with a hymn to primitivism. 31 00:02:23.380 --> 00:02:29.140 Even a wish to return to the Garden of Eden without the taint of technological sin, and 32 00:02:29.140 --> 00:02:35.100 you have a winning piece of commentary. It's all nonsense. 33 00:02:35.100 --> 00:02:40.460 There is plenty wrong with this genre of criticism, as Tibor McCann points out. He 34 00:02:40.460 --> 00:02:44.200 We found someone who regretted the invention of the mirror. 35 00:02:44.200 --> 00:02:49.220 But let us address the cell phone in particular because many people seem to have bought into 36 00:02:49.220 --> 00:02:54.880 the idea that it represents some sort of grave danger to the culture in an ominous sign of 37 00:02:54.880 --> 00:02:57.140 something or other. 38 00:02:57.140 --> 00:03:00.820 Of course, property owners are free to ban them or not. 39 00:03:00.820 --> 00:03:07.320 Burger King wouldn't, but a five-star restaurant probably would, whatever is profitable. 40 00:03:07.320 --> 00:03:12.520 Fiat property owners solve whatever problems arise, but these are not any different from 41 00:03:12.520 --> 00:03:19.160 other problems of what dress, speech and behavior is right for the time and place. Certainly 42 00:03:19.160 --> 00:03:24.940 there is no reason to ban cell phones on flights as the FCC is considering. Leave it up to 43 00:03:24.940 --> 00:03:32.440 enterprise itself to decide. The critics, however, are not satisfied. They say cell 44 00:03:32.440 --> 00:03:48.440 The cell phone addiction is a broader concern. To be sure, it's easy to defend the cell phone on grounds of its emergency services. With cell phones, people have never felt more safe and secure when driving or being out and about in potentially dangerous places. 45 00:03:48.440 --> 00:04:00.440 The critics will concede that. What drives them nuts is casual use, the whole middle class casual culture of the cell phone which seems to them wholly disgusting. 46 00:04:00.440 --> 00:04:07.440 And yet, it is its casual use of technology that makes its emergency use even more economically viable. 47 00:04:07.440 --> 00:04:16.440 It is the demand for GAB that has driven up the number of providers, driven down the prices, and made amazing technologies available to all, 48 00:04:16.440 --> 00:04:24.440 which then provides the spillover benefit of making the emergency use of the same technology affordable and ubiquitous. 49 00:04:24.440 --> 00:04:32.440 A market of emergency-only cell service would not have become the mass phenomenon that it is today. 50 00:04:32.440 --> 00:04:43.440 The appearance of addiction reflects a change in the use of public space made possible by new technology that was born into the marketplace only in 1994. 51 00:04:43.440 --> 00:04:51.440 Ten years ago, talking on the phone was a behavior that was tied to place, namely the home or the workstation. 52 00:04:51.440 --> 00:04:55.920 Or, there was the now anachronistic phone booth. 53 00:04:55.920 --> 00:05:01.720 In retrospect, it is obvious that a vast amount of productivity was being wasted by the requirement 54 00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:07.440 that we be strapped to a chair or a room in our homes or in a glass booth in order to 55 00:05:07.440 --> 00:05:11.000 keep up with work duties, friends and family. 56 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:15.080 Suddenly, and almost like magic, that changed. 57 00:05:15.080 --> 00:05:20.320 The cell phone made it possible to speak to anyone, anywhere from any place. 58 00:05:20.320 --> 00:05:27.280 Think of it! What a dramatic transformation! For the first time in the history of everything, 59 00:05:27.280 --> 00:05:33.480 anyone can have direct personal contact with anyone anytime. No more hiding out in the 60 00:05:33.480 --> 00:05:38.360 home, wiling away the hours with friends or at the office, which used to be all about 61 00:05:38.360 --> 00:05:44.040 the phone but which is now all about email and instant messaging. Professional and personal 62 00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:49.800 uses of phone calls can take place anywhere. We can Bluetooth our way through all informal 63 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:56.080 Life Settings and Get the Most Out of Every Minute. Not only that, it seems obvious in 64 00:05:56.080 --> 00:06:02.720 retrospect that audio communications are an individual and not a community affair. When 65 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:07.600 the telephone first came along, you had to walk to the post office or town market to 66 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:16.600 use it. What a pain! Then there were lines shared by several houses. How tedious! Then 67 00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:24.160 Then there was one phone per household, owned and maintained by the government, PLEASE! 68 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:29.200 The ability to completely privatize audible communication has been possessed by the private 69 00:06:29.200 --> 00:06:35.320 sector since at least 1947, but the government hogged too much of the radio spectrum to make 70 00:06:35.320 --> 00:06:36.320 it possible. 71 00:06:36.320 --> 00:06:41.620 It wasn't until 1994 that the government deigned to provide private enterprise what 72 00:06:41.620 --> 00:06:45.940 it needed to create a revolution in communication. 73 00:06:45.940 --> 00:06:50.720 For this reason, it is useful to think of the cell phone as a freedom technology along 74 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:54.020 the lines of the World Wide Web. 75 00:06:54.020 --> 00:06:58.120 Both were developed by the private sector for the private sector. 76 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:02.680 Both represent institutional revolts against the state's presumption to own and control 77 00:07:02.680 --> 00:07:06.460 the command posts of society. 78 00:07:06.460 --> 00:07:12.980 Cells and the web are the mode and means of liberation that the state will forever resent. 79 00:07:12.980 --> 00:07:16.420 But back to the supposed addiction we all have. 80 00:07:16.420 --> 00:07:20.120 We are only making the best use of our time. 81 00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:25.660 What better time to talk on the phone than when other tasks are prohibited to us? 82 00:07:25.660 --> 00:07:29.620 You can turn driving into a multi-tasked operation. 83 00:07:29.620 --> 00:07:32.420 Same with walking to and from places. 84 00:07:32.420 --> 00:07:35.200 So too with shopping at the mall. 85 00:07:35.200 --> 00:07:40.460 These are the very times to pull out the cell phone, not as an addiction but as a means 86 00:07:40.460 --> 00:07:47.100 of Making the Most Productive Use of a Period of Time. It is simply a matter of economizing, 87 00:07:47.100 --> 00:07:53.480 that is, directing resources toward their highest valued use. But because our eyes see 88 00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:59.420 something new, something we haven't been socialized to expect, and because the market 89 00:07:59.420 --> 00:08:05.280 is expanding and democratizing so rapidly, it creates the illusion of something having 90 00:08:05.280 --> 00:08:24.060 The oddity of public phone use first dawned on the academic class several years ago when 91 00:08:24.060 --> 00:08:30.160 they would walk through campus and see throngs of students yammering away on the phone. 92 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:48.160 Addiction. Can these kids unplug themselves even for a minute to enjoy the scenery or talk to real people? Why should they be so interested in their pathetic little materialistic existence even after all the assigned readings from Veblen, Marx and Derrida? 93 00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:57.160 We need to realize something. These kids are walking to and from classes in which they must sit and listen and take notes for an hour or two. 94 00:08:57.160 --> 00:09:07.160 They are headed to another class where they will do the same, or they might be headed to a library study session, or they might be headed to the pool to meet friends. 95 00:09:07.160 --> 00:09:21.160 In any of these cases, a phone call is not possible or desirable, but traveling from one spot to another, shopping, driving, it's just the time to call, even if only to leave a message. 96 00:09:21.160 --> 00:09:27.720 Now, you might respond that these kids are not actually saying anything useful. 97 00:09:27.720 --> 00:09:32.960 They're engaged in conversational junk punctuated by grunts of nothing. 98 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:37.080 Well, productivity is a subjective concept. 99 00:09:37.080 --> 00:09:41.720 Meeting social obligations, making another person feel connected, letting someone know 100 00:09:41.720 --> 00:09:43.440 you care. 101 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:48.560 These are all productive activities as understood by the individual speaking. 102 00:09:48.560 --> 00:09:54.400 Who are we to say what constitutes valuable or valueless conversations? 103 00:09:54.400 --> 00:09:58.920 The pundit class has a penchant for judging the culture of freedom harshly. 104 00:09:58.920 --> 00:10:04.320 If, ten years ago, these same critics had walked up and down the block peering into 105 00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:09.440 people's windows, they might have spied people on the phone in every home. 106 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:14.660 They might have decried this as phone addiction, but nobody would have taken them seriously. 107 00:10:14.660 --> 00:10:18.400 In fact, the response would have been readily at hand. 108 00:10:18.400 --> 00:10:21.600 Find your own business, bud, and get a life! 109 00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:26.520 Actually, that's not a bad response to most everything that comes out of the carping class 110 00:10:26.520 --> 00:10:30.920 of intellectuals who try to make us feel guilty and oppressed for using products that improve 111 00:10:30.920 --> 00:10:33.240 our lot in life. 112 00:10:33.240 --> 00:10:37.040 Modern technology has us all talking to each other again. 113 00:10:37.040 --> 00:10:38.360 That can't be a bad thing.