Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 236
Your smartphone as babysitter
-IGHT AS WELL BE A BINKY
y hamster-powered dumb-phone
awards me full empowerment and
moral high ground to write the following rant, my friends – and so let’s jump
right in.
M
“Forget tha blahd, geeve
me geeft cards.”
*IM 7ALKER
Don’t Take Me Seriously
When did a smartphone become a substitute for, well, anything real?
I mean, it’s gotten so bad that many of
you are walking around all day with your
eyes on your palms, bumping into things
because you aren’t watching where you
are going. And I hear they will soon offer
collision-warning apps and office-navigation GPS to avoid awkward incidents in
the men’s room.
And, people, who are you kidding? You
aren’t doing any real phone-communication or Web-searching as you stare at
that screen and rub it randomly with your
thumb. Most of the time you are pretending to be doing something on the phone –
just so you don’t have to make eye contact
with anyone.
I mean, people used to use magazines
and newspapers to hide their noses in
when they didn’t want to make eye contact. Now it’s a smartphone – and quite often accompanied by ear buds and a hoodie.
Who are you all so afraid of?
Now, I get playing with your phone
while you sit alone at the bar or coffeehouse or airport, rereading your old
messages and pretending to be busy – so
that you don’t appear lonely and don’t have
to look around the room at the other losers
just like you who are wasting precious
hours of their lives.
I get that.
But it would seem that the trend is
toward eliminating faceto-face communication
in favor of cyber communication – as if, somehow, the people coming
through your phone are
better than the ones in
front of you.
I’ve got a secret for you:
They are the same people. They’re busy
emailing and Facebooking and texting
their ever-increasing circle of nitwits,
while you are doing the same. And, guess
what? Eventually your nitwit coverage will
overlap with theirs and, bingo, you’ll be
sitting next to each other, digitally rubbing thumbs without realizing it. You’ll be
exchanging both cyber viruses and the flu
at the same time.
Wake up. Look up.
I have to tell you, having your phone
vibrate 2,000 times a day so that you can
exchange “Zup?” or play online Scrabble
does not mean you are popular. It means
you are wasting your life.
And even you must admit that 70
percent of the people you are in contact
with through your phone – people you’ll
waste 10 minutes texting back and forth
with to hear about how rude their barista
is – well, you wouldn’t offer your hand to
them if they were hanging from a railing
over a chasm.
Here are the results, just in, from a re-
Video Link of the Week:
"ODYFORM -AXI 0ADS &ACEBOOK RESPONSE VIDEO
N
http://on.mash.to/RCUU6q
| >>
ow, you need to know the back story on this video clip to appreciate
its genius. In short, a man named Richard Neill went on a comedic
rant on Bodyform Maxi Pads’ Facebook page. It seems he took issue with
the company’s advertisements, which promoted the wonderful things
woman can enjoy during their periods – such as bike riding, roller coasters,
parachuting, etc. – if they wear the company’s pads. This rant went viral,
and the company’s response was to create this YouTube video, in which a
fictional CEO apologizes to Neill for the company’s “deceptive” sanitary
napkin commercials. Note the blue water. Brilliant!
WWW.CONNECTSCV.COM s OCT. 24 - 30, 2012
cent personal survey of smartphone users:
Average hours awake during the day = 17
Average hours spent on smartphone = 8
Average hours entirely wasted on smartphone = 6.75 (includes 1 hour faking use)
Average hours talking to Siri because you
are lonely = 1
Average hours of meaningful or worthwhile or “necessary” phone communication
= 0.25
People, smartphones should make you
smart, not trivial. They are for map apps
and finding the closest Denny’s, for getting
quick sports stats to win money on bets,
for Googling “What’s the name of _____
song?” and for searching out the most
discrete massage parlors.
My friends, take your lives back. Get
your faces out of your phones.
Oh, but follow me on Facebook and
Twitter, please.
Comment at jwalker@the-signal.com or at
http://Twitter.com/DontSeriously.
