Chatter

 - Cellular telephones –

9/9/2009

What is a telephone if not a tool for communication?  Since day one of this marvellous invention, humanity reached the apex of its discovery, and distances[1] were no longer an obstacle to communication. 

Can anyone nowadays imagine what it would be like living without a phone in the home? It is almost unconceivable; for many people it is almost like asking: ‘Can we live without food and water?’ In other words, people cannot carry on without a phone today; it has become an extension of themselves. They feel it to be indispensable. 

But what about the mobile phones that we see everywhere today?   

I was born in Italy in 1940, and the first time I saw a telephone was in my aunty Caroline’s shop, just across the road from my grandparents’ patisserie, which did not have a phone in those days. My grandfather Bepe installed a phone in his shop only after the big Po River flood around the years 1951-1952.   

In those days, telephones in Italy were mostly for business, and few homes had one, because people were too poor to afford them.  My father, who ran a smash repair workshop in Adria in the years 1949-55, also had a work telephone. But we did not have a home phone till we moved to Vigevano [Pavia] in 1955. 

Today most people not only have a home phone, but a mobile phone as well, and more than one in many households.  It was in the late 1990s, that the mobile phone gradually became more and more visible in public places and on the streets.  

The first time I used a mobile phone was on a train in Italy in 1995. I wanted to let my cousin Oscar in Adria know that my son Ruben and I were just approaching the station of Rovigo.  I wanted him to pick us up from there.  The man sitting next to us heard our conversation and said: “Here is my phone. Take it and call your cousin.”  I was stunned by his offer and did not know what to say. I did not how to operate that tiny gadget for I had never seen one before in my life.  The gentleman, for that is what he really was, showed me how to use it and so I made the call.  

In 2002, my wife Angela, our daughter Miriam and I went travelling in Europe for a couple of months. Needless to say, I was amazed to see that not only adults had cell phones, but school children also.  And I saw… and heard… that they were making good use of them. 

Today there is nowhere that one does not see people - adults and children - with a mobile phone in their pocket or bag or in their hand playing with it, talking on it (and often loudly).   

I don’t mind seeing this happen on the street – “It’s a free country.”  However, when the phone rings in your own home a few minutes after, say, an electrician or plumber or a relative just arrived… Uffh…grrr..grr… I grind my teeth - for I find this very annoying, and a plain intrusion in my own home. 

But this is only part of my displeasure in regard to mobile phones. [Now one might think that I am a bit of a dinosaur. Never mind!].  When I travel, whether by bus or by train, the intrusive clamour of mobiles ringing and the chatter that follows, sends a distressful signal to my brain: “Am I the only sane person, or am I the only alien here?”  

Why on earth should anyone have to put up with the jarring ring tones and the chatter these people make with their phones?  There is a limit to everything. Why should people impose their standard on others with their phones? So much for privacy that people demand - when it suits them! Why must we be bombarded with their personal business?  

In some places, like churches, medical centres, airplanes, there are regulations which say: please switch off any electronic gadgets, such as computers or cell phones etc. But some people take no notice and do as they like.  

My wife Angela and I were flying from Sydney to Morocco last year.  During take-off, the passengers were told to fasten their seatbelts and switch off their computers and cell phones. A young man sitting three seats from us was still busy working with his laptop. Seeing that he did not switch it off, I decided to tell him, for we were taxiing on the tarmac.  The man looked at me with a nasty glare, as if to say: “Mind your own business!” He did not like me telling him and continued using his computer regardless.  Not only that but when we were air bound, he started using his mobile phone too. 

The other day I was in the medical centre in Scone.  There was a young mother playing with her mobile phone, in spite of the warning on the wall, saying that people are not allowed to use cell phones on the premises. 

And what about people using their mobile phones while driving their cars?  I have seen hundreds of them doing it.  

What has become of our society? Have we become a society of phone maniacs?

The psycho-social trait

I have noticed people today are constantly occupied, listening to their electronic widgets, plugged in their ears, whether DVDs or mobile phones, than ever before. People are totally absorbed by these new devices, and seemingly take no notice of what goes on around them.  I call this new phenomenon self-inflicted.[2]autism

To illustrate what I am saying by ‘self-inflicted autism,’ I will give a couple of examples. One day, an acquaintance was walking ahead of me. I called her, but she did not respond. I called her again, but to no avail.  Then I went up to her and touched her on her shoulder.  She turned to me with a startled expression in her eyes, which said: Who are you? Why did you touch me?”  With a look relief she said, “Ah, it’s you, Nadir!” and so saying, she pulled plugs from her ears.  “You didn’t hear me when I called you,” I said.  “What were you listening to any way?” She looked at me a bit perplexed, “Oh, some music.” She was so totally engrossed in her music that nothing else in this world existed.  

Another day, early in morning, I was walking in Scone with my dog Leo, when I saw from a distance my neighbour Nancy.  She too was walking her little dog. I waved to her while I was still a few yards from her. Then as she came nearer I said, “Good morning, Nancy.”  She looked at me, but she did not reply. 

The following day I was watering the garden in front of our house and there was Nancy doing the same thing to her garden, so we began to chat. “How are you, Nancy?” I asked and without waiting for an answer, I added, “I saw you yesterday morning walking with your little dog…”  She interrupted me, “I saw you too, walking with Leo but you didn’t say hello to me. You walked straight by without acknowledging me. You pretended not to see me.”   

I was astonished, to say the least, to hear that. “I waved to you,” I replied, “I also called you by your name. You just looked at me, but you didn’t answer.”  “Ah yes,” she said, “I didn’t hear you, because I had my ear plugs in.” 

She had her ears plugged in and listening, she said - I don’t know what she was listening to, though. How can anybody be attentive to what happened to them, if they are captivated[3], remote from everything that is going on around them?  I like this word, ‘captivated’, because it gives the very meaning of what really happens in the minds of people today. People are captive, prisoner of an alien spirit that separates them from reality and truth. 

“Phoney reminiscences”

I really love living in the country - the peace and quiet where there are no unwelcome noises and the air is fresh and unpolluted.  Some years ago, I went fruit picking in Stanthorpe. One Saturday afternoon after finishing work, I recall standing there among hundreds of apple trees; my boss and I were discussing my pay cheque, when I heard a buzz from the boss’s pocket.  His right hand went into his pocket and got out a cell phone.  He put it to his ears and started talking.  The conversation went for about twenty minutes.  I got so pissed off that I was tempted to leave him there and then and go home.  But then I thought I would achieve nothing doing that.  “So much for peace and quiet,” I said to myself. “Even here in the country interruptions are inevitable with these bloody mobile phones.”   

Last year, I was returning by bus from Sydney to Scone.  At one of the stops, the bus came to a halt and some new passengers got on the bus. A young attractive woman came to sit in the vacant seat next to me. “Oh that’s nice”, I said to myself, “This might be a chance for an interesting conversation.”  In no time though I was disillusioned, because soon after she sat down, the young lady took her mobile phone out of her bag. Next she took out two plugs and inserted them in her ears. That was the end of our ‘conversation’, pardon, I mean, the end of that story. 

Mobile phones & the adolescents

I have observed that there is no age group that uses cell phones in a more conspicuous way than adolescents. Now one might argue that it is so only because teenagers are seen most of time together in groups rather than individually. True, but what I am leading to is that I don’t remember ever have seen adolescents without a mobile phone in their hands, whether using it for making a call, or just playing, or listening to music or whatever. 

How often have I seen school children, in their teens and even younger, in the park or train-station or bus stop, sitting in a circle on ground playing with their cell phones. It looks like those adolescents have nothing better to occupy and entertain them than their phones.  

Multifunction cellular phones

It’s amazing what modern technology can do today.  We started in March 1876[4] with a basic wired telephone with only one function: to communicate messages across long distances. Nowadays, digital mobile phones have not one, but many functions, from a conventional comunication, SMS text messages, internet, music, games, photographs etc. It is of this last function, photography that I would like to talk about it.

Mobile phones, teenagers and porno

Some time ago, I read an article regarding teenagers’ use of cellular phones. However, the author focussed most on how teenagers use their mobile phones for sending naked photos of themselves to their friends.  Thus, according to this writer, pornography is not confined to the Internet, or movies, but involves cell phones also and adolescents are very good at it.

Here is an extract from an article, The Planet: 

Naked sexting teens charged with child porn offences 

Sexting is one of those words you might not have heard of if you are over a certain age. That age being 18 I would imagine. Sexting can best be defined as sending naked photos of yourself using your mobile phone to another phone or a social networking site.

As I have reported before, the plain fact of the matter is that teens just love posting naked pictures of themselves online. Indeed, surveys suggest that 36 percent of teen girls have posted online, or electronically sent, nude or semi-nude images of themselves as have 31 percent of teenage boys[5]. 

Here another snippet from another source[6]: 

Phone porn 'rife' among teens: report

Teenagers are increasingly spreading homemade porn on their mobile phones, according to a new youth ABC talk show investigation.

Walkley award-winning journalist Steve Cannane has been investigating issues affecting young people for The Hack Half Hour, a 10-part television series to premiere on ABC2 on Monday.

For an episode that will air in mid-October, Cannane's team investigated how young Australians consumed porn and he said they were blown away to discover how rife homemade porn was among teenagers.

Mobile phone and who pays the bill?

What has been said so far was only part of the problem. However, when one touches the financial side of the issue, then the weather suddenly changes from cloudy to stormy.  At the end of the day, the question is: who pays the bill for those cell phone calls and all the rest comes with it?  Mum and Dad, of course.  

Here is an extract from the “Australian Broadcasting Corporation”:

Mobile phone debt a big problem for young Australians

Reporter: KERRY O'BRIEN: The findings of a new report from Melbourne's La Trobe University will come as little surprise to most families with teenagers.
Mobile phones are being blamed for the rising incidence of problem debts among young people. The age range is actually from 12 to 23.
The youth market is a lucrative one and phone companies know it.
The Melbourne study says that particular group of consumers dictates 75 per cent of all household spending and generates the bulk of a staggering 400 million text messages on mobile phones each month[7]. 

Radiation and brain tumours with cell phones

What about the health risks involved in the use and abuse of cell phones.  I am not writing here only in relation to adolescents, but to everybody who uses a mobile phone today.   

This article from Foodconsumer, Approaching Epidemic: Brain Damage from Mobile Phone Radiation, states:

....collaborative team of international EMF activists has released a report detailing eleven design flaws of the 13-country, Telecom-funded Interphone study.

The exposé discusses research on cell phones and brain tumors, concluding that:

• There is a risk of brain tumors from cell phone use
• Telecom funded studies underestimate the risk of brain tumors
• Children have larger risks than adults for brain tumors

The Interphone study, begun in 1999, was intended to determine the risks of brain tumors, but its full publication has been held up for years. Components of this study published to date reveal what the authors call a ‘systemic-skew’, greatly underestimating brain tumor risk[8].

There is plenty of documentation on this subject.  Here are a few links: You Don't Deserve Brain Cancer - You Deserve The Facts - http://www.rense.com/general63/FACTS.HTM 

More Data - Cell Phone Childhood Brain Cancer Linkage. From Don Maisch – Australia - http://www.rense.com/general59/moredat.htm 

Cell Phone Use Horror Stories - ConsumerAffairs.com

http://consumeraffairs.com/images/nav.jpg or

http://www.rense.com/general7/hors.htm

Summary

I guess some people, if they did not agree with me before for my stand on some controversial issues, now they will hate me for telling the truth.  Never mind about that, I can live without their approval, for I am not looking for appreciation from anyone, but to serve the truth.  Because as Jesus said:”When you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John 8:32.) 

Tell people something they know already, and they will thank you for it. Tell them something new, and they will hate you for it. 

Maranatha