In wars of old communication was limited.  For many years of mankind’s history in order for the great generals to get a message to the front line of an army it was required that some poor target on a horse was handed a message and sent to say hi personally.  The major downfalls of this plan are easy to see.  First, it can take days of riding for the message to get to where it needs to go.  Second, if for any reason Bob the delivery guy gets shot then 100% packet loss occurs and no one even knows what became of him.  In fact through history many battles have occurred AFTER the end of a war simply because the commanders of the armies just didn’t get the memo that they were friends now.

Now, fast forward to about 20 years ago.  A new technology was starting to emerge.  The cellular phone was still in its infancy, mainly due to the fact it was like talking on a small weather satellite in your hand.  The battery packs were huge dubbing it “the brick phone”.  Still, it allowed many drivers the convenience of a car phone. Still in its early days the signal was unreliable and the phone cost almost as much as the car it was installed in.

As time has passed the cell has grown up.  It has become smaller and more feature filled.  Now days a phone can do more than the room sized super computers of old but they now present a chocking hazard as they are so small you can accidentally swallow them.  A whole society now wanders around with the phones that are simply mobile communication stations.  Even more entertaining is when they use the head sets in stores making themselves look like mental patients talking to their invisible friend Harvey while on a call.

In modern day life there are many good uses for a cell phone in both the personal and business world.  I simply want to know at what point did we become chemically dependent on these modern day telegraphs. To explain lets go through the different phone annoyances:
1. No one can hear me while I am on the phone: How many times have you been in a public place and can totally hear a person’s private conversation.  Somehow the cell phone brings a very false sense of security.  Its like the average cell user doesn’t realize that just because they WANT the conversation to be private, doesn’t mean it actually IS private.  Thanks to this oversight I know that there is a some guy named Johny who cheated on his girl with Naomi who is a total prostitute and Sally is really upset.  Besides the overriding fact that I really don’t care I am not sure the 90210 love triangle wants the patrons of Best Buy to know this about them.

2. I want to be cooler so my phone has the new JayZ ring tone at high volume:  In a quiet work environment your peace is disturbed by the latest hip hop song.  I personally have nothing against hip hop other than personal hatred towards almost all of it.  Still in general this example could be anything really from Kenny G to the crazy frog.  Every phone has a vibrate mode so why must everyone have a slice of MTV blaring when people call.  The most interesting part is that it is always the same person and they ALWAYS look totally surprised as if they didn’t pay $5 for it.

3. Excuse me while I take this:  There are 2 types of these people.  First, are the ones that always walk out of meetings or dinners to get the call.  These are also the most popular people on earth.  I receive a few calls a day whereas it always seems that these lucky few have the whole British Parliament needing to talk to them.  The second and equally annoying ones like this are those who don’t leave.  They simply sit there talking while everyone else waits.  The real confusion here is that out of all of the calls I get in a day almost all can wait.  Granted, I am not very important but still voicemail was invented for a reason.

These are just a few examples.  In 2 decades we now are completely dependent on these things for communication.  Instead of having peace we allow the whole world a method to shatter our quiet times.  My favorite is that  20 years ago we just allowed people to call and we would get back.  Now we are incapable of being out of touch.  We feel lost and disconnected as if our self worth is tied up in who uses our personal phone.