Cells

I am firming up theory that cell phones represent an evolutionary leap in social culture.

Last October, I visited the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. It was a bucolic autumn Saturday that stirred treasured memories of my early adulthood when we formed life long friendships, wandered from coffee houses to foreign films and savored that golden moment of walking toward a beautiful face you knew was the future.

That day in 2006 provided proof for a personal revelation of sea changes in cultural values that are shifting in the narrow bands of radio waves - all governed by cell phones. I was strolling with an old friend who is now on faculty in the University's Sociology Department. I remarked that there weren't very many students around. I naively inquired, "Is there a football game? Are they studying?"

"Sit down," she offered "You're going to want to hear this". Keep in mind - my friend benefits from two decades of observation within this academic community and she is a professional in the study of communication and social groups. She took a breath and explained that, over the last ten years an evolution of values has occurred.

A much larger percentage of undergraduates arrive with cars.

A large percentage of students live far from campus in newer, mid rise apartment buildings near the expressway. These moderately luxurious apartments often have small health clubs on the ground floor and a network of national chain retail and restaurants has sprouted up around them.

The University has encouraged this exodus from the campus borders - the rickety but charming frame houses of Urbana and Champaign that provided communal housing are being swallowed up by the campus. University urban planners aid the draft by providing free shuttle buses.

Keep in mind a large percentage of students grew up in the suburbs of Chicago - roughly two hours away.

HERE'S the shocking part for me and my generation: a large percentage of students go home for the weekend!

I was momentarily stunned and my stomach flipped a little. I thought of all the wonderful weekends I spent with my college friends, the parties and laying around on avocado shag carpeting redolent of hemp and keg beer. The wandering through farms and fields with new love and poetry.

"Why?! How?!" I gasped. She replied in a very circumspect and firm tone with two words: "cell phones".

She sighed and continued, "These kids have had cell phones from the age of ten. They are in constant contact with their peers and their families. Their thumbs have special callouses from texting. No question goes unexpressed. No experience goes unexplicated. If they are waiting in line - it is an opportunity to tell someone in their directory that they are waiting in line. Their solitary interior world has dwindled to sleeping hours."

"As a result they have formed much closer bonds with friends from grammar school and high school. And their families are much more integrated into daily life." At this point she admitted that kid's time in primary school is far more structured than ours had been and this also contributes to a dependency - a deficit of an interior world.

"So they go home as often as they can. It also helps that there is a ton more disposable income."

This revelation stands in contrast to my experience and that of my peers who are now 40 - 50 years old. We were dropped off on the curb of our dorms in August of our Freshman year. When we made it home for Thanksgiving it was a trek. Toll calls were reserved for Sundays or calls from the infirmary. The cell phone's ability to make the world smaller and fuse social - or class - identity is astonishing.

When new technology is rapidly assimilated into culture we often experience loss of civility.

The slapstick caricature of this moment is exemplified by the early appearance of the automobile. We have dozens of representations of late-victorians being rushed off the street by coughing, combustible engines. Fists are waved and skirts are spattered. The drivers move forward in lurches and bangs - usually oblivious of their invasion into pedestrian "frequency" - a slower, more deliberate wave form.

If this image of the Model T's effect is any indication - cell phones will triumph against my standards for civility in the public forum. Which brings me to my kvetch of the day.

This happens thousands of times, every day. You're in line waiting for a cashier and the person in front of you is being checked out and they are talking on a cell phone. The phone conversation inhibits the check out and here comes the defining moment - the cell consumer actually puts up a finger to an actually present cashier to shoosh them while they finish their conversation. I despise this phenomenon of social ignorance.

I am proposing a campaign to draw a line. Something like "Not on my dime" or "Cellular Civility Please". Starbucks represents a great forum for this sort of discourse and could actually provide positive reinforcement for their brand. If they could come up with a benign or humorous point of purchase card that would reinforce awareness, they would gain loyalty and provide a public service.

And I am not exclusively luddite. I imagine two outcomes from a common narrative. Two young lovers schedule an exciting liaison at a crucial moment in the development of their affection. The first version of the story has one of the lovers experiencing some delay without the ability to reach the Other. The second version shows how the love was saved by a cell phone.

Post script:

Hallelujah!!! This from the New York Times. Cell phone blockers for personal use. It's like magic with a flavoring of social justice.

I have to wonder how the FCC can extend their reach into private spaces - homes and businesses - this way. Isn't there a constitutional question of privacy, involved with my ability to control the methods of communication in my own environment? Aren't theatres being built with this blocking technology? A part of their logic in enforcing the illegality of these gadgets is the idea that the blockers can be used in criminal enterprise. Well so can cell phones and knives and duct tape, etc.