Or, Mr. Burnet, they were just calling their ride;)

You lost me. What the heck are you talking about?

Buttercup, that was my first reaction: 95% of those folks were on the phone confirming that someone was going to pick them up.

I use a laptop, an iPod with noise-reducing headphones and random 2 hour playlist for solitude when writing in a coffee shop. It's very productive -- and very techno-hip.

Didn't someone post something awhile back that showed how constant interruptions make people 10% more stupid? Cell phones and internet chat sure can't help people's intelligence.

Sorry, RC. Can't talk now. The pager is beeping and I have all this e-mail to deal with before breakfast.

Buttercup:

Yes, I thought of that, but isn't that even more neurotic given that the flight was on time?

This kind of cantankerous protest against modern madness is usually dismissed summarily by the sunny defenders of technological change...

Why "madness" ?
So far, we have a picture of 30% of the people that you saw deplane, talking on the phone...
But you don't know to whom, or about what. You simply assume something dark.

...who like to blather on cheerfully about efficiency, choice and our infinite adaptability...

Exactly. CHOICE.

But nobody watching these folks deplane could seriously believe choice had anything to do with it...

Because...
?

Is it possible for a society to be free, self-reliant and resilient when solitude and contemplation have been completely destroyed and when life consists of fevered multi-tasking from dawn to dusk, broken only by desperate attempts to escape it in the most uncomfortable, controlled venues?

You really need to move to someplace sane.

Or possibly, change your lifestyle.

NOBODY is forcing you to "fever[ishly] multi-tasking from dawn to dusk", just as NOBODY has "completely destroyed solitude and contemplation".

YOU choose to live in a way that has caused you to think these dark thoughts.
There are other ways, and places, for you to be, where there's plenty of solitude and contemplation...

But YOU have to do it.

Nobody will "make you" choose to stop living in a way that you obviously hate, just as nobody has forced you to stop using the coffin nails that you know are killing you.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 5, 2005 7:25 AM

"Yes, I thought of that, but isn't that even more neurotic given that the flight was on time?"

Presumably you need to call to verify that your ride has arrived, and to arrange a meeting point.

The above may have an overly-harsh tone.

Forgive the bluntness, and keep the main thought: YOU can control your life. Don't let others dictate how you will experience existence. If there is discord and negativity, change what you're doing.

Life's too short to be trapped on someone else's treadmill.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 5, 2005 7:36 AM

Peter:

Perhaps you need to work on your disregarding skills.

I suppose it's why we still have both amusement arcades and fishing lakes. Nightclubs and national parks.

Trains in Britain now have one designated 'quiet carriage' where you can't use a mobile or an i-pod or a sony discman.

They may as well just call it the 'grumpy old men' carriage. Peter, next time you're in Blighty I'd be happy for you to join me at my table in it. I'll do the crossword and you can watch the empty cathedrals pass by and contemplate the decline of civilisation.

I (purposely) left my cell-phone behind when I went to temple yesterday. I have to admit that it felt weird.

Michael:

Yes, you have stated the libertarian equivalent of the apostle's creed quite well. My main question is whether you believe you are describing a factual reality that applies to almost everyone or appealing to minority values that must be acquired through experience, discipline and self-control. It would be really nice if human nature substantiated the former, but it doesn't.

Your fallacy is in the assumption that, because all the incidents of modern life can be broken down into matters of conscious individual choices, their sum is therefore just a total of a bunch of conscious individual choices for the average person. In your world of human atoms, there is no cultural or psychological influence that trumps or overwhelms the spirit of the stoic yeoman, no unconscious influence of the gods of necessity and no looking to the past (or anyone else's experience) to predict the likely collective outcome of all this. Everyone has the strength and wit to understand the effects of these incidents of modernity on himself or herself better than anyone else.

Now, I wouldn't be here if I didn't value freedom and choice high up on the old value-o-meter, but to pretend most folks don't live like the Amish or decide to do without TV's and cellphones because they have carefully weighed the pros and cons and made conscious, reasoned choices is a fairy tale, and too often an excuse for just ignoring the surrounding social reality.

This also explains why modernists tend to believe that we are freer today than yesterday by definition, when all they really mean is that material security is more widely spread, chance is (in some ways) more controllable and we have lots of neat gadgets. I simply can't understand those who watch most of society race to acquire all the latest technological wonders and build their working or playing lives around them and who then say: "Ain't freedom grand?"

Brit:

So grumpy an old man am I becoming that I hold one positive benefit of the decline of religion is that the cathedrals are empty when I want to visit them.

For what it's worth, I'm okay with cell phones at airports, because that has greatly reduced the stress of meeting up with people after traveling.

That said, other than traveling, I leave mine at home nearly all the time.

Cell phones bother me in two places: restaurants and supermarkets. Obvs for the former, the later because people are using wireless headsets while talking loudly, and so they look like crazy people. This sets off my pycho-dar all the time, and it is just unnerving.

Illegal as they are, I've thought about soldering a short range jammer for restaurant use.

Ultimately, Peter's not alone and new rules of etiquette will grow to meet abuses of new technologies out of his and others social opprobrium.

Well said, Peter.

Mr. Herdegen's implicit denial of the reality of community is a standard libertarian blunder, sincere enough, but no less blunder for it.

Mike:

What about riding down 30 floors in an elevator with someone who is talking at a volume just slightly less than yelling?

Peter: Yes, so long as you avoid the times when the cathedrals are full of happy-snapping Japs and loud American tourists directing epic home movies on their camcorders....

The one great advantage of mobile phones is that meeting up is now a cinch. No longer does one have to spend a forlorn hour standing at some freezing landmark while the other party is delayed or lost.

Indeed, it's got to the point where it is almost rude not to have a cellphone, for that reason.

But you have to weigh that against teenagers with deafening ringtones and jerks who jabber away inanely about their job or what's for dinner every spare moment.

I sincerely hope that Mike is right and it all eventually balances itself out in some sort of accepted etiquette. In the meantime, that's why we have golf-courses.

Peter B:

You cling to your chains so ferociously, although the keys are in your hand.

You are only a victim if you let yourself be one.
So act, or don't act.

Either way, take responsibility for whatever you choose to do.
The whole "society made me do it" worldview is unbecoming an adult.

Paul Cella:

Rather than implicitly denying the reality of community, I'm explicitly saying that the reality is that the community has decided against inconveniencing themselves so that misanthropes can have some quiet time.

Peter rails against the fast pace of modern life, then claims that he doesn't have the choice of participating or not, despite the fact that, at most, only 10% of humans live in the way that he describes.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 5, 2005 10:01 AM

Michael:

You cling to your chains so ferociously, although the keys are in your hand.

You are only a victim if you let yourself be one. So act, or don't act.

Hey, when did you get your new job with Hallmark?

Thank you, Michael. We middle-aged misanthropes really benefit greatly from that kind of Oprah-style motivational speech that lets us see how grand life would be if we just recognized the potential within us and got to know and love our ipods. Who knows, maybe we could scale Everest too if we just believed in ourselves. The sky's the limit for those with the power, no?

Let me try it another way. Do you agree that: a) the pace of life is speeding up; b)public perceptions of what is materially necessary and useful in life are expanding, and c)the vastly increased ability to communicate is driving a psychological need to communicate with exponentially expanding frequency?

If so, do you believe that this process can continue forever without personal and collective spiritual, social or political consequences? Yes or no?

Peter;

Yes, Yes, No.

I think what Michael and I find difficult to credit is that person A feels compelled to talk on a cell phone because he observed person B doing so. That is the root of your claim, as exemplified by your question (c). I find it far more plausible that person A always wanted to communicate and his observation of B provides the means, not the desire.

AOG:

So are you suggesting pre-21st century man had a constant yearning to talk with family, friends and colleagues fifty times a day that he had to suffer in silence until Mr. Nokia answered this unquenchable thirst? Then why does this article talk about the bliss of being out of touch?

Mr. B: My husband and I have to place that phone call when we get off the plane in Atlanta because his mother will not leave the house until the plane has landed. She says it is the only way she knows for sure the plane is on time.

I despise phone cell conversations at inappropriate times and venues and think it rude yet hilarious how many private conversations people unthinkingly make the rest of us, willing or unwilling, privy to. But, in the case of fatigued, bedraggled and (usually) famished travelers, please let them make one phone call to find their rides.

The thing I found hilarious about this article is that I'm usually filled with enormous relief at disembarking an airplane and a cell phone call is the least of the irritations you endure. Here is a short list: crying, restless children, people who last bathed with the last full moon, the armrest struggle with your seat mate, the hellishly uncomfortable seats, the wildly disparate temperatures from the frigid cold no penguin should have to march through to the sauna and back again, the Dickens thin blanket meant to ward off said chill but you wonder when it last was laundered and are you in danger of picking up some nasty interlopers in order to avoid freezing to death, the constant vigilance to make sure the sweet tempered attendants do not accidentally on purpose whack your shins with those monstrous drink carts that fit in the aisle by a mere hair's beardth, always finding that you are seated by someone who earns the nickname "Typhoid Mary" by the copious amounts of mucous sprayed into some raggedy tissue, etc........Ah, yes, the bucolic pleasure of plane travel!

"Ultimately, Peter's not alone and new rules of etiquette will grow to meet abuses of new technologies out of his and others social opprobrium."

Unfortunately, we live in a time when etiquette is considered confining and unnecessary . Most of those people causing the phone problems are often no better in person (See Buttercup's list of offenses for examples.) What's needed isn't a vendetta against cellphones, but against the idea that it's okay to be a jerk.

(As for those who consider National Parks as sanctuaries from phones, you have visted many recently, have you?)

We middle-aged misanthropes really benefit greatly from that kind of Oprah-style motivational speech that lets us see how grand life would be if we just recognized the potential within us...

No, you don't, more's the pity.

Some folks just like being miserable, and get kinda testy if you point out that they're CHOOSING misery.

But, it's my Christian duty to plant the seed.

The sky's the limit for those with the power, no?

A sarcastic delivery of the absolute truth.
That's actually the most important lesson to learn on the path to enlightenment.

Do you agree that: a) the pace of life is speeding up; b)public perceptions of what is materially necessary and useful in life are expanding, and c)the vastly increased ability to communicate is driving a psychological need to communicate with exponentially expanding frequency?

As AOG said.

If so, do you believe that this process can continue forever without personal and collective spiritual, social or political consequences? Yes or no?

No, but only because you specified "forever".
After all, the human brain only thinks so quickly, and we're bound to reach maximum capacity at some point.

Your complaint goes back 5,000 years, to the development of urban areas, and the dissolute, fast-paced lifestyles that developed therein.

So are you suggesting pre-21st century man had a constant yearning to talk with family, friends and colleagues fifty times a day that he had to suffer in silence until Mr. Nokia answered this unquenchable thirst?

No.

He DID talk to them fifty times a day, but since he lived with them, no phone was necessary.

Ironically, you are advocating that there be LESS communication between people, thinking that somehow that would draw people CLOSER TOGETHER.

How is that to work, specifically ?

Also, you say We spend a lot of time here defending freedom, democracy and family against statism and the self-regarding life and I wouldn't be here if I didn't value freedom and choice high up on the old value-o-meter, but you apparently don't much like it when people take you at your word, and exercise those freedoms of choice.

You assert that somehow the community is damaged by people talking to each other, but how, exactly ?

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 5, 2005 11:59 AM

Buttercup:

Wow, and I thought I was the grumpy misanthrope around here. That was great! And I readily admit that my curmudgeonly thoughts were inspired at least in part by the fact that the whole experience of flying that day was execrable. Orrin's state line rule should not be scorned.

But you have my word that the coming Burnet-imposed social order that will place heavy restrictions on cellphones and anything else that is useful or fun will exempt all calls to mothers and mothers-in-law. Just don't complain to me if they won't stop calling you back.

An interesting question is: why is overhearing somebody else's conversation on a mobile phone so much more irritating than just overhearing a conversation between two people together?

I don't think it's just volume. It's something to do with only getting one half of the exchange that is so maddening. You can't stop your brain from guessing what the person on the other end of the line might be saying.

The gun-control mentality at its worst.

Cell-phones don't behave like thoughtless churls; thoughtless churls behave like thoughtless churls.

If one does not wish to be disturbed by an incoming call, all he must do is shut the phone off. Usually holding down one of those little buttons for about three seconds does the job.

To have a telephone conversation at a time or place or with such a tone of voice which it would be inappropriate were the conversation being held in person is similarly inappropriate.

What next? Are we to be told that automobiles are "bad" because some individuals misuse them? Cell-phone technology, like transportation technology empowers us to transcend time and space, whereby we expand and project our consciouness in time and space.

Michael:

So are you saying that anyone who doesn't embrace and celebrate every new popular fad or bauble that hits the market is some kind of spiritual cripple who is choosing misery? I really wish you could see some of the messed up people that come through my office who wrecked their or their families lives lives by making foolish decisions born of their convictions they had the power to do whatever they wanted.

Lou:

Actually there may be an inverse relationship there because the more I see of cell phones, the more I'm against gun control.

It isn't about politeness or inconveniencing others or about banning anything. It is about how much "transcending of time and space" we can handle before we all start becoming characters out of A Clockwork Orange.

Peter B:

No, I'm saying exactly, and only, what I said.

My guess is that the messed up people that you see are primarily those who thought that they could do whatever they wanted WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE.

Nobody MUST participate in a life that leaves no time for quiet reflection.
There are periods in most people's lives when that's true, but outside of prison, people make their own lives out of thousands of accumulated choices, as you point out.

Perhaps because you work with damaged and foolish people, you have grown accustomed to thinking that nobody really considers what the likely outcome of their decisions will be, but if a person were unhappy with the hectic pace of their current lifestyle, wouldn't they be "choosing misery" if they did nothing to change their habits and surroundings ?

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 5, 2005 12:42 PM

Here's my little self-referential cell phone story:
I have a cell phone that I rarely use, but I have it for emergencies. Most of my day is spent answering phone calls from nitwits and fools, so I don't like talking on the phone when I'm on my own time. Last January I was drving down I-89 South at about 4:30 am. The temperature was a balmy -10 degrees (that's -23 to you, Peter). Without warning, Pow! At 75mph (120kph) I hit a folded up step ladder lying across the road. The ladder was made of aluminum or adamantium steel or some such, because it screwed my car up bigtime. Three popped tires, ripped off muffler, fluids leaking all over and every red light on the dash lights up. I felt like a fighter pilot that has just taken a missile up the tailpipe. Thankfully, the highway was deserted, and I managed to use the rest of my momentum to get to the shoulder. Frankly, it all happened so fast that I don't remember all of it. But the car wasn't going anywhere and I was at least 5 miles from the nearest exit and another mile beyond that to a payphone. But, I had a cellphone, and an auxilliary antenna to boost signal strength. (Best 15 bucks I ever spent). I called AAA for a flatbed, called work to let them know I was going to be late, called the cops to report the incident and called my insurace company. All from the side of the road. And, no, Peter and Orrin, I didn't intrude on anyone's precious "personal space, man" while I was doing it. Within 20 minutes I was sitting in a nice warm squad car giving my statement, which I found very much preferable to hoofing it back up the highway to the nearest payphone, or freezing to death on the side of the road.
So, I think Mr. Gots has a point, and after that incident I always make sure my cell phone bill is paid and my batteries are fully charged.

Michael:

Maybe, but they might also be choosing honour, duty or commitment over personal happiness and, with luck, live to understand why that was the right choice and eventually brought joys and serenities that far outweighed the temporary unhappiness, even if the prospect of such was hidden from them at the time.

Look, I don't disagree with the gist of much of what you are saying except to the extent that you are suggesting that celebrating each new development in modern life is a sign of spiritual health. If I am "happy" rejecting cellphones or automobiles or the 21st century or whatever and "choose" to prosletyse against them ('cause I got the power), don't I meet your test?

Gov:

I am very happy you had a cellphone, just as I am very happy Todd Beamer had a cellphone.

isn't that even more neurotic given that the flight was on time?

I can't say much about other major airports, but at SeaTac at least they did NOTHING to replace the nice waiting areas at the gates that were banned to all but ticket-holders post-9/11. You now have to either crowd into the baggage area with all the incoming passengers, which has not had any increased seating or even space added, or else you circle the airport until they show up outside baggage claim. Having a cell phone is a wonderful gas-saver in the latter case.

If I am "happy" rejecting cellphones or automobiles or the 21st century or whatever and "choose" to prosletyse against them ('cause I got the power), don't I meet your test?

Yes.
However, the main post doesn't sound to me like a self-satisfied rant against modernity, it sounds like despair, a deep sense of loss over intruding communications.

Maybe I'm just dense.

I don't disagree with the gist of much of what you are saying except to the extent that you are suggesting that celebrating each new development in modern life is a sign of spiritual health.

The extent to which I suggest that is ZERO.

What I'm saying is that we have the power to choose whether or not to accept most new developments.

Some would say that they're forced, due to professional considerations, to accept changes that they'd rather not.

My response would be that they are then choosing to remain in that profession, and accepting that they will have to adapt, regardless of happiness.

As you say:

Maybe, but they might also be choosing honour, duty or commitment over personal happiness and, with luck, live to understand why that was the right choice and eventually brought joys and serenities that far outweighed the temporary unhappiness, even if the prospect of such was hidden from them at the time.

Thus, choosing satisfaction over happiness.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 5, 2005 2:34 PM

I dunno Peter, you seem to be exaggerating how bad things are.

If I'd seen the same piece by someone else, I'd have written it off as a case of old fogeyism.

I'd have written it off as a case of old fogeyism

That, of course, wouldn't be me. The reason why you all think that is the case is because I was using an innocuous, semi-comic little story about cell phones to illustrate a broader and much more comprehensive point that obviously transcends cell phones or any other modern miracle individually. The responses above seem to be either to the effect that cell phones have productive uses (of course they do)or that I'm sunk in gloom and too depressed to realise I can just say no to cell phones.

Where are the conservatives around here?

Peter, methinks you are in a funk of some kind. I felt that way when I first had to carry a pager and cellphone for work. But I really have to agree with Michael here. You really do have much more control over how much technology intrudes on you than you think.

For one thing, the guy in the article is a freakin' vice president for Touchstone pictures! If you seek the high-powered life, this kind of 24x7 on-call status is par for the course. If you can't keep up, drop out. I've sworn off any ambitions for managerial advancement for the life of an itinerant consultant so as to enjoy a 40 hour, low pressure worklife. I don't get called at home anymore, and I don't have to fake enthusiasm for the corporate vision statement.

I finally took the plunge into cable TV this year, which meant that for the last 10 years I had no clue when it came to popular shows like the Sopranos or Sex and the City. Since having cable, I can affirm that I haven't been missing much.

People jabbering on their cellphones may be a nuisance, but how does it compare to past nuisances for which we no longer have to worry, such as horse dung in the streets? You just need to cultivate an ability to tune them out. Being a married man, I'm sure that you have some experience in this regard.

Of course I am in a funk. I just wasted half a day arguing about cell phones with a bunch of doctrinaire libertarians.

What do you do when you're not in a funk?

Robert:

I argue with leftists about George Bush.