Everyone has seen Rodin's statue The Thinker. That may have been an appropriate symbol for another age, but it's not for ours. Today's statue would show a person talking on a cellphone. It would be called The Talker.
When I walk across campus at The University of Texas at Arlington, just about every other person I see, student or professor, has a hand to his or her ear. The eyes are cast downward, with an occasional glance upward to take one's bearings. What are these people talking about? To whom are they talking, and why?
I asked these questions of a colleague. He said the typical conversation would probably go like this:
A: "What's up?"
B: "Nothin'. Just got out of chem class. Where are you?"
A: "Headed for the dorm. Gotta study for a logic exam."
B: "Talk to you later."
A: "Bye."
The time spent yakking is time not spent thinking (or worse, spent not thinking). I fear for the future of thought. I really do. Television has already destroyed our attention spans. Now there are cellphones to deliver the coup de grace to reflection. We have become a society of zombies.
While I'm ranting about cellphones, has it occurred to anyone besides me that they enslave their users? If you're always in touch, you're always accessible. Marilyn Frye defines power as access to others. (See Marilyn Frye, "Some Reflections on Separatism and Power," in her The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory [Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press, 1983], 95-109, at 103.) If you're always accessible to others, no matter where you are, whom you're with, how you feel, what you're doing, or how important it is, you're beholden to them. They own you.
Please don't dismiss me as a Luddite. I'm no technophobe. But I'm no technophile, either. Technology isn't our master. It's our servant—as Thoreau long ago pointed out. I predict that cellphones will one day be seen for what they are: leashes. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be leashed to anyone.
