Phones Addiction And Other Perils Of The Cellular World.

I have this friend who I believe suffers from paranoia. The paranoia that if their cell phone is left home, not answered right away or if it doesn’t sound it’s ringtone for more than an hour something is wrong. I also believe that either most of us have a friend or more like this or is one.

Despite everything you have read, cell phone addiction exceeds all other addictions in its sheer obsession among the masses by millions. When this object of compulsion is misplaced or inadvertently left at home, I have watched their owners become reduced to emulating jello stroked with a vibrator. Cell phones are the purist of all forms of addiction ever known to humankind.

A study most obvious.

Psychologist at the University of Utah did a study on cell phone use and driving. The results revealed that a person’s driving ability while on a cell phone compares to a person who is alcohol impaired. I do believe they were being kind in their assessments. I have seen evidence that people with cell phones displaying debilitating forms of mentally impairment. This bit of technology has become the Linus’s blanket for much of the civilized world.

Cellular road rage

Driving while talking into a hand held phone is illegal in many states. Yet millions of people do it blatantly. The other day I was on a one-way street and the SUV in front of me began to slow up and finally rolled to a stop. I could not see around the vehicle and assumed there was a car in front that caused the stoppage. After a few minutes, traffic behind me was building up and horns were honking. Being curious, I got out and walked around to find nothing in front of the SUV. I knocked on the driver’s heavily tinted window and got no response. I did so again admittedly a bit harder and the window scrolled down. This woman with her cell glued to her ear raises a finger as if the person she was talking to could see and calls out “Excuse me a moment, there’s some jerk here.” She turns and gives a harassed look, “What is your problem can’t you see I’m busy?”

Warped emotions

That is not by far my favorite example of cell phone addiction. I attended a wake with a person who was supposedly suffering extreme emotional duress over their relative’s passing. The ringtone sounded and the person pretended to be embarrassed by the event. Yet, the person went off and came back very elated. They claimed they had closed a sale in the funeral parlor lobby. The truth was the caller was the person they were cheating with. The emotional distress was gone and the dead relative forgotten.

A more pressing danger

I was in a diner casually having a dinner and reading the newspaper when these kids across the way caught my attention. One of the girls was teaching the other how to obtain a prepaid phone and hide it from their parents. This came about because the kid who was instructing the others found out her parents was monitoring her calls and usage on the one they gave her. It is because these trac phones are so easy to get and relatively still cheap that the idea of using the phone as an electronic leash or babysitter is a joke. Parents your kids are hiding them from you and they are at risk.

The all time best use of a cell phone

I was watching a TV program where these two men were fighting. Presumably, one was the bad guy trying to get away and the other the good guy trying to stop him. The bad guy wins and escapes the good guy gets up slowly reaches into his pocket for his cell. He proceeds to pop the bad guy in the head with the phone at what must have been one hundred or so feet away. If that didn’t impress you than knowing that moments later the man was on the cell standing over the perp calling for back up. This was reminiscent of the old John Cameron Swayze Timex commercials with the slogan of “it takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.” As far as I am concerned, this could start a rage to replace the old dwarf tossing events. Better yet, it could be an effective means to use on those idiots who stop traffic on one way streets.