No Cell Phone
Written January 3, 2005

I don’t have a cell phone. I realize this is a grave admission, forever severing me from the twentysomething hipster archetype that I so adore. I know that this denies me permission to the illegal Taiwanese massage parlour of coolness (with a happy ending). I’m aware.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I even had one of those old-school Will Smith phones, the kind so big that the bottom half actually reaches to your mouth while the receiver rests on your ear. You know, the kind with the jiggly rubber antennas. But alas, I have nothing – no full-colour screen, no Tupac ringtones, no OMFG LOL text messaging.

On a regular basis, all my friends stand around comparing their tiny gods, proudly displaying must-have features and rapidly increasing miniaturization: “Look! Look! When I have new voice mail, this strobe light flashes so brightly that nearby street children have seizures and fall down in the gutter! And then a robotic arm comes out and sweeps all the blood into the sewer grate. And the whole thing’s so small that it fits in my nostril, see?” Then they all notice me weeping in the corner, sorrowfully excluded, and laugh as they take pictures – with their cell phones.

Yes, cellular telephone devices provide everything these days, from procrastination gaming to heavily vibrating trips to Pleasure Island . The benefits are staggering: you can talk to people whenever you want! A friendly voice is just a few neon buttons away, anytime, anywhere (especially during lectures and orgies, it seems). You’re never alone, even when you’re alone.

And maybe this is my personal hang-up, the source of my stubbornness to not buy into a very-berry personalized package-plan and join the rest of my generation. Behind all the gadgets and sparkle, a cell phone exists for a single core purpose – to keep you connected. Always. “But Monsignor Clemens!” you might cry. “I can turn off my phone whenever I want to! See? This little blue button, right here! Watch me press it!”

Well, yes, you can press that button. This is true. But because cell phones have become so prolific, carrying contact info, schedules, pictures of your three-legged cat and so forth, they are near-omnipresent. Even if you aren’t using it, the phone is still in your purse, in a pocket, down your pants. It’s there.

And to me this poses a threat. We’ve all seen MSN’s devilish ways at work: you should be writing an essay but somehow your contact list opens up (somehow!) and hours slip by as you debate the merits of various kinds of pickles. Similarly, the phone’s very presence seems to demand attention, to require fiddling with simply because it’s there. Connectivity is addictive and when you carry its ultimate implement everywhere you go, you’re liable to be drawn irrevocably into the network. At least we can leave the computer behind from time to time.

From tweenagers at the mall to the business-class idly wasting time at dinner while their date is in the bathroom, it’s visibly apparent that we can’t put these things down. I’m not advocating we throw down technology and take up the torch, but I think we all need to stop, even for a second, to ask the necessary questions: What’s so terrible about your immediate surroundings that you so desperately need to be somewhere else? Why are we in the same room and yet not? What’s changed that we can’t we be alone with ourselves anymore?

A particularly chincy topic cooked up on short notice, but still relevant nonetheless. We’re dangerously close to becoming a society of telecommunicators and forgetting the merits of interpersonal conversation, simplistic and unmediated by the iron grip of technology. Anyone remember that commercial showing a family at the dinner table, each member talking to another - with their cell phone, despite the fact that they’re all 3 feet away? Yeah, I wasn’t amused by that.