Phone as Friend

While I don't travel much, I have to say I learn so many new things when I do.  Yesterday I peeled my middle school students off of me and walked out halfway through the day (after the substitute came, I mean) to embark on a quick visit to my sister in Ohio.  The trip is long overdue; my nephew has had some major health challenges, and I wanted to give family support.  ANYWAY, as I mentioned, yours truly doesn't step off the hamster wheel of work-kids-home very often.

So there I was, connecting through the Atlanta airport, and it seemed that everyone around me was talking to him or herself.  It used to be this was a sign of mental aberration, a natural reaction being that others might give you a wide berth (as in the excellent advice I once received growing up in NYC to "pick a fight with your jacket" if stuck on a subway platform with unsavory people).   On closer inspection, though, I realized that most of the people in the airport actually had cell phones stuck to their heads or earpieces jammed in their ears.

In fact, all the different high tech phones and high end conversations (I overhead one man saying "That will be worth $750K to 1.5 million to us...") made me feel a little self-conscious when I pulled out my prepaid flip phone to check the time.  I am the only person I know who is actually going backwards, technology-wise, but my Android phone drove me crazy and cost $80 per month: Too much for someone who doesn't like Facebook, follow hot stocks, or want the latest apps.

(My husband teased me that the flip phone might only allow me to connect to the 14 people who still use MySpace, and in fact we almost died laughing when I realized a MySpace icon really is on my flip phone's internet menu.)

What interests me, though, is how much some of us have come to see phones as companions, even friends.  This notion is only reinforced by commercials I've seen in which people have conversations with their phones, apparently not wanting to face the fact that they are just rattling around in their own minds.
If that weren't enough, when I looked through the SkyMall catalog a special bracelet caught my eye.  "Communicate discreetly with your phone" it advertised, because it displays the number of your caller on the bracelet.  This, combined with the feature that makes the bracelet vibrate anytime you are more than 16 feet from your phone, ensure that you will "never be separated from your phone."

At this point we are past friendship and into full blown infatuation.

So I thought I would attempt to find this level of emotional satisfaction with my little flip phone.  "You mean so much to me" I told the little black flip phone  "I never want to be more than 16  feet away from you."

I waited, but perhaps in keeping with its understated appearance, the little black flip phone never responded.


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