蘑菇视频

Jun 17, 2013 4 min read

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First, my personal, unscientific theory.

Since the last name of the inventor of the telephone was Bell, I’ve always thought our telephones “ring” when somebody calls us. What sounds, then, would our telephones make, if Alexander Graham Bell’s last name would have been Sneeze, or Cough or worse? Just a thought.

Now, to the heart of this.

Alexander Graham Bell had no idea how many millions of telephonic communications would follow his simple one-way call to his assistant Thomas A. Watson in March of 1876.

But history tells us that even Bell, himself, was wary of the possible pitfalls his greatest invention may cause. He refused to have a telephone in his office, because he felt it might interfere with his work.

If Bell were still alive, he might be heartened by the many uses people have found for his telephone but shocked by ways it can interfere with primary, face-to-face communications.

Technology has advanced our ability to communicate over distances, but there is some evidence it has diminished our ability to communicate with each other in the same rooms.

A noted MIT professor, Sherry Turkle, (to be specific, she’s the Abby Rockefeller Mauz茅 Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT), has done extensive research on society’s use of telecommunications.

She’s written a book, “Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other,” which clearly presents a sad portrait of how, as technology plays a bigger role in our lives, we’ve become less and less connected to each other.

Her premise is quite simple. The more people take advantage of cellphones and Internet connectivity, the less involved we become with each other in society. Less technically, that means we’re becoming dull folks, because we no longer have the same desires to engage each other — except through the digital worlds of texting, Facebook and Twitter. I agree.

Take a look around. Stand in any line, or have any family dinner, and you’ll see an increasing number of people have little concern for the world around them because they’re busily staring into their cellphones or using them as a means to conduct mini-texting conversations.

It’s even worse on the road. Pennsylvania has had an anti-texting law since March 8, 2012, but drive along any highway, and you’ll see drivers who ignore the possibilities of fines, and they’re still texting away.

The PEW Research Center’s Internet Research Project has recently released the latest data on cellphone usage.

It’s found that 91 percent of American adults own cellphones. Of them, 67 percent of cellphone users “find themselves checking their phone for messages, alerts, or calls — even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating.”

And what is shocking is the number of people who claim their cellphone is “something they can’t imagine living without.” Makes you wonder why some enterprising entrepreneur hasn’t created “Cellphone Anonymous.”

Young people, who’ve never lived in an age where there was just one telephone in a house shared by everyone in the household, are easiest to fall prey to cellphone addiction.

They’re in constant cellphone contact with each other.

Turkle doesn’t suggest that today’s individual teenagers get cellphone “grounded.” She’s learned that some of today’s youth develop high anxiety if they can’t make constant contacts with their cellphone mates. Something that leads to intense boredom.

Instead, Turkle believes there should be cellphone black spots designated in our homes and in places reserved for communal activities. In other words, parents can insist that there should be no cellphone usage at dinner tables, in family rooms and anywhere family members can engage in collective activities.

I know this is a novel approach, but she’s saying that we can all learn, again, to talk to each other, without a $400 device in our hands.

I like that!

Uniontown native Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net