The Cellular-Phone Phenomenon.

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
1

It seems like everywhere you turn, these days, you see someone talking on the phone.

It makes you wonder how we got by before the technology existed to keep us in continuous contact with……with….with who?
Who is this someone we need to call in the middle of the street or who needs to call us?
Who are we talking to, all the time?

Every time I’m in the unfortunate situation where I am forced to eavesdrop, whether I want to or not, on another’s conversation over the phone, I’m, almost, always confounded with the mundane babble involved and wonder what is really involved here.

Is this some phenomenon of simply taking advantage of technological possibility or are there deeper psychological reasons why the mobile-phone has become a necessary accessory to our lives?
Are the costs of owning and maintaining an open line with the world and of constantly yapping about inanities while surrounded by strangers who are forced to listen in on our incessant talking something that involves some form of competition, as a display of popularity and/or desirability, or is this only the product of capitalistic marketing?

2

An artist friend of mine once told me about a concept called horror vacuui (if that is spelled correctly, it’s vacu and a hard I sound). That is when artists feel the need, rather than the desire, to fill every inch of the canvas. I suspect that much cell phone discussion is an example of that. It is the inability to be still, mentally.

That leads me to believe that many people suffer from great amounts of emptiness and loneliness. I recall reading in The Brothers Karamozov how some peasant women would just start screaming and going crazy from stress and a meaningless life. Are we seeing the release of this stress via babble?

Since people are animals is all that chatter a form of barking? That’s another possibility.

I’m a person with a lot to say and almost never use a cell phone. I just can’t keep that kind of talk up. I’m amazed. I also dislike watching sports for the same reason.

3

I think the phenom is the same as the walkman, the blaring TV or radio - anything to fill the silence in their own lives… only now they can share the misery! Too few know how to be comfortable being alone. Alone is loneliness. Cell phones are just another symptom of being alienated from self. I’m going to pay for this, I can tell…

JT

4

TheAdlerian
I was thinking along those lines, myself.

tentative

This finding self in others or distracting ones self from the reality of being, seems to be the underlying motive behind this.

We often want to be intimate with others, not recognizing that any such intimacy will always be partial or based on pretence, and we avoid intimacy with ourselves.

Perhaps the inherit meaninglessness of existence is something we intuitively sense and avoid any possibility of becoming aware of it.
We flee in horror from any expression of genuine self and lose ourselves in others or in distraction.

I always found that those with the least to say talk the most and those the most afraid of loneliness become the most verbose chatterboxes, where an endless stream of nothing flows forth to cover the silence they fear.

5

Very good points. I agree with all of them.

The cell phone has become the perfect complement for the television. One more handy tool to avoid depth with self and others. I know lots of people who pay the same amount for cell service as they pay for car expenses or for food and 50% of the amount they spend on rent.

I come from a place where cell is king, so I have a few comments I’d like to share on cell behavior and intimacy avoidance. (Note: none of this refers to mothers of small children, people in business or emergency job workers.)

Cell ringing:

I know (lots of) people who tell others to call them on their cell at a specific time BECAUSE they know that at that time they’ll be busy with people and popularity is measured nowadays by how often your cell rings. And people who give their cell numbers and say “call me” to people who have nothing to say to them and they know it, just to increase the amount of cell ringing in their phones.

I know people who feel proud of a whole bus seeing them receive a cell call and listening to their blabber or having someone on the phone with them hear that they have call-wait (ie another caller seeking them). I’m ennervated by people who sit at home by their cell + home phone and answer both all the time, so you’re hardly ever the only person they’re talking to during your conversation.

I know people who attend workshops and lectures to socialize, yet until the activity starts, during the whole break and as soon as it ends, they’re talking on the cell-phone and inaccesible to anyone who might want to introduce themselves or have a word with them.

Cell answering behavior:

Cell has become also a way to regulate how much distance/closeness we want with someone. I know people who, according who they’re dining with, they’ll answer their cell calls or turn the cell off. Depending on how much depth they want the dinner conversation to reach. Whether someone answers their cell when with you or not has become a tool to measure their interest in relationship with you. Does this person turn off their cell before they reach the meeting place where they’re meeting you? Or only the moment they meet you? Or only the first time it rings? Does this person, when with you, check the screen to see who’s calling and then decide whether to pick the call or do they let it ring without looking? These are all statements, albeit indirect.

I know people who, if they become bored or uneasy with someone’s conversation at some point, will slide their hand into their pockets discreetly and surreptitiously turn their cells on so there will be interruptions. (And the amazing thing is, the cell ALWAYS rings once it’s turned on). Cell answering behavior has become a way of relating WITH THOSE WHO ARE NOT ON THE PHONE, a way of saying things without speaking. Eg, instead of “I’d rather not discuss this right now”: I turn on my cell on you. The “ON” button has replaced the dagger that’s pushed against someone in self-defense against disclosure.

I know people who won’t give you more than a minute if you come to see them, but will hold a half hour conversation with you if you call them on their cells and they happen to be driving, doing dishes, walking on the street, sunbathing, waiting or doing some other activity that triggers in them the fear of contact with self.

Greentea

6

I suppose a pervasive ennui is part of it. Part of it is just the times. My attitude toward cells is tempered by the fact that I’m 36. I’m an electronics buff and I’m still enamored with the gizmo factor, impressed with how small they are, etc. Young people today probably can’t conceive of what it was like not to have them, but I didn’t even have cable til I was 17.

Like many I have a love-hate relationship with mine. On the one hand, it’s very handy. It’s really essential for my job (a lot of contact with sales people, etc), and it lets me get out of the restaurant yet be accessible if I’m needed. But that second part is a double edged sword- it’s difficult to inaccessible when people expect you to answer the damned thing. :angry:

I am frequently amused by something that was alluded to earlier. You see people calling that short list of people they only talk to when they’re bored. Why in this day and age do you still here “guess where I am right now” so frequently?

7

I guess I’m too damned old to get caught up in the high tech dazzle. For me, I see too much communication. We’re inundated with so much information that very little time is given to any in depth consideration. That our conversation with others follows the path of superficiality seems a curse . Intimacy? I hardly think so. I was at the theatre the other night, went to the restroom, and there’s this guy standing there taking a leak and talking to his girlfriend… Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned, but there are a few things I really don’t want to share with friends and family… :astonished:

JT

8

Really great points from Adlerian et. al.

I don’t talk much on the phone now, any phone. I just find noise of any kind too annoying a lot of times, especially when I’m really busy.

Btw, recently I saw in the news this thing called “blackberry”, a handheld device that can access your computer, allows you to do conference with other people, etc. This guy runs his company of 10-15 people solely on blackberry. But his observation of this blackberry phenomenon is the same the observation made on cell phones: people get addicted to it so easily. He calls it “crackberry”. People have a need to do somethng with their thumbs and couldn’t put it down.

9

Yeah, just the other night I was at the Ale House shooting pool and I got to talkin’ with this chick. Eventually she asks me for my phone-number, and when I told her I didn’t have a phone, she looked at me like I was a dinosaur.

Just how hip am I if I don’t have a cell-phone? I want to know.

Satyr’s right, as usual. The cell-phone phenomena is just another expediency to sell products to people who do not need them. Sure, people talk on the phone endlessly, but it isn’t because they have something important to say- rather they have the phone so they might as well say something.

The unspoken intention behind the use of the phone is this: “I am modern, which makes me cool, because I buy all the latest gadgets, which are very expensive, which in turn means that I am important because I have enough money to buy the cell-phone. See, mine has a camera in it! I’m the shit. Oh, and I also have very many friends, which you can hear me talking to on my phone if you are lucky. I’ll even speak loud enough for you to hear my conversation, because I want you to know I’m popular.”

How do I know this? The commercials, kids. I watch the advertisements.

10

This “phenomenon” of gadgetry extends beyond cellular-phones.

The recent X-Box craze was an instance where modern human psychosis came out loudly and clearly.

Our infatuation with gadgetry is not always based on some need to become more efficient or to make our lives easier. We buy because it’s the latest craze, the “in-thing”, the popular gizmo that exemplifies our social participation and value.
Gadgets also distract us from our life and offer a release from the ennui of safety and satiation.

I would not be honest if I didn’t admit that I was momentarily swayed by the X-Box hype - a gaming system with a multi-purpose function, a gadget to fill my empty moments with faked importance and artificial excitement, with graphics that rival reality in their realism.

We don’t even play in real life anymore. We play head-to-head in real time, each secluded and at a distance, where no consequences matter and the result is corrected by simply pressing the restart button.

The underlying reason is that we are cutoff from the repercussions of our own actions. We, intuitively, know that whatever mistakes we make and whatever stupidity we believe in, that we will always be protected from the worse repercussions.
Our life and our well-being is guaranteed, under some communal constitution, and our safety and ‘rights’ are ensured by a moral system that has raised human existence into holiness.
All deserve everything, if – and here is where social authority exposes itself – they adhere to the rules (written and unwritten) and play by the book (that never threatens the community).
As a consequence a sense of entitlement permeates the masses, from an early age.
Disrespect and stupidly lose their severity and become cute and funny.

Domestication in animals results in a docile, friendliness. A domesticated dog sees all strangers as potential friends. It knows no danger and has never had any experience that would make it cautious.
That is why, in relation to wolves, dogs are adolescent.
This stunted psychological growth becomes cute to us - childlike.
The dog is unthreatening to our authority and that is why we adore it. Its helplessness and its inability to fend for itself and its total dependence on us ensures its loyalty and makes it lovable to us.
But we respect the wolf, because it is unpredictable and will test our powers over it.
We admire the wolf, even if we can never trust it.

This same “domestication” – I’ve called it feminization in one of my essays: ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … zation+man – has similar effects on mankind.

The mind, having been protected from the most severe threats to its being, remains adolescent and lacks the self-control, caution imposes on it. It lacks respect for everything - because at its bottom respect is a form of fear/intimidation - including its self.

It, therefore, seeks validation and fulfillment through artificial means.
Some of my thoughts on the topic of entertainment I’ve written here:
ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … zation+man

Nevertheless, our technological progress is forcing us to integrate newer and faster technologies into our everyday life.

This integration, usually takes the form of banality and superficiality, since man is a simpler creature than our creations would have us believe.
The average human being has no real need for these gadgets, but creates the need by making it a want, to fill in the consequences of a civilization that has buffered him from nature and now forces him to use his mind, created to deal with danger and need, in alternate ways.

11

Excuse my second post but I neglected to add another dimension on this cellular-phone phenomenon, and I went off on a different tangent.

In my mind, it would seem that the cellular-phone phenomenon is the result of us not being able to find any interest in the world around us, alone and with ourselves, directly and without intermediaries.
The world is too mundane or our perception of it too shallow to hold our attentions.

We, therefore, need that other to fill in the boredom and to distract us from ourselves.
We feel fulfilled and engaged only when there is another there to verify it and we feel our identity only when there is another there to reflect it.
We cannot sit silently and enjoy the scenery or witness the spectacle of reality and the beauty of nature. We must fill in the emptiness in our heads with yammering.

…driiiiiiing…
Excuse me I have a call… :blush:

12

I bought a cell-phone because I had to have one, and I gotta say its pretty cool. What’s cooler is the holder/sheath for it that clips to my belt or my pocket. It is an elastic material with rubber reinforcements at the impact points, and it is a sleak grey-black.

I have an idea I am going to try just for kicks. I’m going to stage fake conversations in front of unsuspecting people to see how they react:

“Dammit Tony! I told you no cops! Get Don the hell outta there and make sure the cameras don’t see you. Meet me back at the shop. I can’t believe you fucked this one up, Tony. Shit!”

Or:

“Okay, okay, just calm down! Elevate his head and try to plug the hole in his skull to stop the blood and grey matter from seeping out. I’ll call an ambulance immediately and I’ll be there shortly.”

13

detrop,

LOL! One man guerrilla theatre! When I was in college a bud of mine and I used to do similar stuff. The made up conversations that certainly got their attention. Great stuff. Be careful with subject matter. It can get you into trouble.

My favorite was played with a young lady who agreed to announce to the world that she was naming me in a paternity suit. My part was to tell her no way, there were five other guys in that room and she made me go last. :laughing: A shiny white knight type didn’t like my attitude and if a couple of friends hadn’t stepped in, there would have been a donnybrook right there. He was even more angry when he found out what was really going on. Anyway, fun and games…

JT

14

I used to take the train to New York a lot. Frequently, I would end up having therapy conversations on the phone. I would try to be quiet, but it really wasn’t possible. You should have seen the reactions to that! The whole car would go quiet.

15

Cheers all,

Hum, I enjoy having a cell phone if my old beast breaks down and I can call AAA. Also, my phone is set for 700 minutes and I can call So. Cal, and Southern Nevada, my mom, other half and son in VA without extra charges, and not have to worry regarding setting the egg timer if I were using a land line.

Granted, I do hate the way individuals loudly chatter away in restaurants, on campus, etc. I do not allow cell phone chatter in class, they can take it outside and partially lose credit for the day’s attendance. One student decided to press me on this issue and during a Writer’s Workshop called a pal. I told him to take his conversation outside and partially lose credit or hang-up. He left and loudly stated “She trippin man.” Yeah, she tripped him right outa class with a formal discipline form.

:evilfun: