Pissing on Bell’s Grave
I’m sitting in class, when a strange and badly rendered audio file begins playing in my pocket. My pulse races and I can imagine I blushed profusely as, for the first time in my life it was my phone ringing when it should have been off. My mind flashed over the short list of people who could be calling me on it, none of them people I should ignore, and decided to do the standard act. I flipped the phone open then closed. Thirty seconds later it rings again. I can feel my classmate’s irritation as I shut down the device and note that the calls were from my best friend who is in the navy.
In that moment, I am reminded why I hate phones. This isn’t some passing convenient hatred mind you. This is a long standing and deeply rooted hatred for the device which we call the telephone. This is hatred to the point where I have considered desecrating the grave of Alexander gram bell in retaliation for the curse he unleashed on society. No matter where I go phones insist on being there and interrupting good conversation with their obnoxious ringing in some settings such a thing would be called sound pollution, but for the phone it is permitted for any amount of noise, at any time, to be made. Not only are there phones wherever I go, but there are now phones that you carry with you, so that if by some miracle you find a place that has no phone line, you or one of your friends can ruin it with a sudden burst of badly recoded 8-bit audio being pumped through a speaker that is designed to send sound no more than three inches. The resulting recording often mutilates the music beyond recognition, wasting the ninety-nine cents you paid to get that twenty second recording.
But my real problem isn’t with the ring tones, or even with the invasiveness of the phone into every corner of the country. My problem is talking on them. I hate talking on phones because I can’t see the person I’m talking to. When I talk with someone I want to look them in the eye. I want to wave my hands and have them understand what I’m saying, both with my voice and with my fingers. Only five percent of communication is the words you say, so I want to get the full message. Truth be told, there are presently three people in the world I will happily set aside my prejudice for and talk to across the phone lines for more than five minutes at a time. Two are my siblings, the third might as well be.
Now, before you start shouting hypocrite, after all, I obviously own a cell phone, I would reply that I was dragged, literally, into the cellular age. That is to say, a friend dragged me by the arm to Radio Shack, bought the phone for me, and put time on it. He got me set up and started, I get to cover it from there, and thus far it has proven useful, just as a normal phone is useful for relaying quick messages over long distances. However, for a long conversation, I’d much rather settle down with the person over tea, or coffee, or just sitting in the field and talking. If they are far away, then letters work well, even emails. The written word is deliberate, and thought-out, therefore it can make up for being only five percent of communication.
That’s another thing I don’t understand: why is the act of letter writing such a dying art? I’m not talking about business letters of notes sent back and forth, I’m talking about the three page personal letters your grand children find in shoeboxes and use to piece together your life. I’m referring to the long personal letters between people telling of local news, thoughts and emotions and planning future events, letters that were one side of a complete conversation. What happened to them? I think they died because of the telephone’s prevalence. Where once a person would have to send letters to communicate across country now we just lift a phone and instantly connect to people two thousand miles away, and can do so multiple times a day if we wish. This invaluable act of personal history recording is dieing away because of the convenience of phones and the need for instant gratification of out thoughts and questions.
I wonder if bell knew what he was destroying when the invented the phone. I wonder also if he understood that someday, some college student would hate him for his contribution to modern laziness. It is perhaps a testament to what the phone has become that the first call placed was to the next room.
Then again that first call was what I feel all calls should be, short simple and to the point. “Mr. Wattson, come here, I want to see you.” It’s simple, no admonitions about the weather or his health or even asking about the clarity of the message, simply the request that he come to see the inventor in the next room. It is a model, much like the lords prayer, as to just what a phone call should be. An address, to tell who you believe should be on the other end of the line. This is followed by the statement, which in turn is followed by a brief explanation of the statement. Nothing complex, nothing off topic or unnecessary, just a quick, clean message conveyed over the wire with the clear indication that further conversation should occur in person.
But that isn’t how a phone call goes anymore. Now a phone call is expected to stretch on for minutes or even hours. Instead of organizing and arranging meetings for personal conversation we dive right into the discussion from the safe distance permitted by the telephone. From our remote locations, we speak to people we have never seen and hold long conversations with their disembodied voices. I feel that this depersonalizes the entire act of conversation. If you can’t look a person in the eye, and feel them near you, can you truly empathize with them? There is a mass amount of communication between people that is entirely physical or visual. The absence of these elements leave the individual searching for an appropriate verbal response without the luxury of time that comes with written communication. The result is that we fill the space with inarticulate sounds and phrases that rob us of our conviction and authority. Expressions like dropping “like” into inappropriate places in speech steal the confident tone from our statements when they exist purely to buy time so we can figure out how to articulate our facial expressions, or hand gestures.
Indeed I despise the phone for the role it has played in destroying the basic eloquence of the people, and communication as a whole. Through misuse, it has done seemingly irreparable damage to the English language, and the cultural interpersonal development of not one but multiple generations. The convenience it provides has led to its gross over-usage, and like any good thing, an over abundance of it ruins its value. Mr. Bell, I hope you’re happy with what you’ve done to us. It may not have been your intention, but it was certainly your actions which brought us here.
