The ancient origins of cell phone technology

My sister, the former Lucy Mannion, has been having an anxious week.

My brother-in-law and my teenage nephew are on a white water adventure on the Colorado River and they've been unreachable by cell phone since they descended into the Grand Canyon.  It's been three days since Lucy's heard from them and it's making her a little crazy.

When I heard about this, I reacted with my usual compassion.  "Gee, too bad, you have to live like it's the 1980s for a week."

If Lucy had been in the room with me she'd probably have responded in the usual way she did when we were kids and I demonstrated such big brotherly concern for her problems---she'd have thrown whatever hard object was handy at my head.

Lucy's worrying might have occasioned a post about how we've become addicted to technologies that we didn't even imagine twenty years ago and which we did fine without.  But fortunately I am not a reflexive blogger.  I took some time to think the problem over.  Fifteen, twenty minutes, at least.  I asked myself how people managed in the old days when they would routinely not hear from friends and relatives for months at a time, nevermind a few days.

But my imagination jumped past the days when women like Lucy waited anxiously for a letter written weeks before to finally turn up on their doorsteps to when women like Lucy were never out of touch with their spouses and children for more than an hour or two at a time, which times happen to be most of human history and pre-history.

For most of the time since we climbed down from the trees most human beings---excepting the few who lived in seagoing merchant societies and the more aggressive warrior cultures---were never out of earshot of the people they cared about for as long as most Americans are now out of touch with their immediate families.  We can go weeks without talking to our mothers.  This is new.  Most people could not turn around without bumping into theirs.  We work miles---and hours---away from our homes.  Most people worked just down the street or over in the next field or in the shop out front or the room downstairs.

Of course wars and hunting parties and just the need to explore would sometimes take men and older boys away from home for weeks at a time.  But usually when history's umpteen million Lucys wanted to know where their men were they just yelled up the stairs or out the door or they walked down a short path and there they were.

In fact, this is still the way it is for most people living outside the United States today.

When they want to reassure themselves about a friend's or a child's safety, they reach out their hand.

You can look at our increasing reliance on email and cell phones, the internet and faxes and overnight package deliveries and see the day coming when we are never out of touch for a moment no matter where we are, and you can shiver at the thought that that day is the day we become a hive.

And there is something awful about the fact that your boss can get hold of you any hour of the day no matter how much distance you put between yourself and the office, no matter how you are supposed to be on vacation, spending time with your family, sleeping.

And if you're the teenage son of a Lucy and not a Lucy herself there's a lot to be said for being able to go four days without having your mother checking up on you.

That's the way I often look at, although as an internet addict and cell phone user and abuser it's not the way I live.

Maybe because there's another way of looking at it.

You can look at all the people walking around with cell phones glued to their heads, with Blackberrys always in hand, with their laptops out on the tables at Barnes and Noble and think we're becoming the Borg.

Or you can look at it and think that all those gadgets aren't taking us forward into a dystopian future, but allowing us a perk of an Arcadian past.

We can do something our ancient ancestors took for granted, something that was ingrained in them and part of their culture---something that made them, and us, human.

Whenever we are lonely or worried or afraid or just feeling chatty, we can reach out and touch someone.

I'm sure your boys are fine, Lucy, and they'll phone home as soon as they can get a signal.

Comments

[Greg]

When I see the laptoppers, Crackberries, and especially those folks with the Star Wars things in their ears, I usually think "thank god I'm not that important"!

Yes, I have a cell phone and am usually reachable during business hours. Or for my wife to reach me in the bar on weekends. But it's a convenience, not a necessity.

[mac macgillicuddy]

The first cell phone that the macgillicuddies ever considered getting was for my wife, about six years ago, when it occurred to us both that she was a) working late-night hours and driving on lonely country roads, and b) driving sometimes--whatever the time of day--on lonely country roads with very young kids in the back seat. The cell phone plan we bought had something like 30 minutes on it. It was for emergencies as traditionally defined.

I didn't get a cell phone for myself until a couple of years ago when I started to notice that the local phone company had not only stopped putting in payphones at shopping plazas, but was actually going around taking them OUT, and when I was out and about and needed to check on whether a client needed me, I couldn't just duck into a nearby phone booth.

But, and don't tell my clients this, now that I have the cell phone, I keep it turned off most of the time.

Still, I'm reminded by this post, Lance, that I need to call my mother.

[Jennifer]

I finally broke down and got a cell phone after my car broke down on a really crappy stretch road and I had my two yr-old in the backseat. I use my cell phone mainly for emergencies and to take the occasional baby bird photo. :)

The thing that amazes me are the large number of times I see people chatting while walking. I'm sorry, but if I have the luxury of walking alone, I want to be alone with my thoughts.

[Ken Muldrew]

"One of the oldest human needs is having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night."
Margaret Meade

I don't like telephones at all, whether cell-based or on a land line. I couldn't really tell you why, but it gave me great comfort to discover that Jim Lovelock (the Gaia fellow) shared this discomfort. Another ancient human need is knowing that you are not alone in your eccentricities.

Laptops are OK, but I prefer to work at a good desk with a full-size, tactile keyboard. With an LCD screen, there's very little need not to have a normal size computer (also, I've had the worst luck with laptops breaking down on me).

[Linkmeister]

I avoided the cellphone revolution until March 2006, and then only because of the roadside emergency potential. Here I am a year later, and I'll bet I haven't had 15 minutes of phone conversations other than the "Get outta bed and make the coffee" variety.

I remember spending three days hiking down the Grand Canyon, along the river, and then back up. The only people we worried about talking to were the guys meeting us with the cold beer at Indian Gardens on day three.

[marjo]

I'm one of those last hold-outs without a cellphone. The first one I had was expensive and I swore off them at that point. Now I'm on the verge of buying a prepaid one for car and kid emergencies, esp. because my home phone is internet-based and if that goes out, well, I'm sunk, and just try to find a pay phone that works. But I keep putting off the purchase because seeing people glued to phone all the time really creeps me out.

I swear by my computer for things like communication, shopping, maps, researching, news, entertainment, music, EVERYTHING, and this weekend, when our monitor crapped out, I found myself fitgiting because I couldn't do those things. I tend to be a late adopter of tech, I guess, but once I go, I go all the way. No wonder I'm cell-shy.

As to the theory that families used to be closer... not sure I agree. How many times in the past were women wedded (sometimes against their will) to men who lived or moved far away, and women were just expected to drop all ties to their original families? I was thinking of that recently (in reverse) because my agoraphobic mother-in-law is dreading the apparently inevitable move of her son, his wife and baby to Hawaii (from Michigan) to be closer to the wife's family. It's really kind of sad. We are not rich, and neither are they; it's her family footing the bill, I guess. When they move to Hawaii, that's pretty much the end of the relationship bet. a mom and son, a mom and grandson, not to mention my own kid will not get to see or know his cousin for possibly many, many years. Don't care what you say, no email or cellphone will bring Hawaii any closer to an un-well grandmother.

[billy pilgrim]

I'm currently taking a class on "Telling Tales" -with the talented John McGivern- and in our initial class, many of the participants bemoaned the loss of people who could tell stories, that 'these kids today' are all obsessed with passive entertainments, yadda yadd yadda...

I demurred, pointing out that the explosion of myspace, Youtube, and blogging points to people who do, indeed, love to connect to other people and tell their own stories.... using new techniques, true, but is that a difference that makes a diffeerence?

Not to mention, of course, that while many of the people doing so may be amateurs and/or amateurish, there are also any number of gifted folks making use of these newfangled gadgets....

[Linkmeister]

marjo, if the current airfare wars going on out here in Hawai'i continue, travel might be cheaper than you think. Granted it's only inter-island fares that are $1 at the moment, but who knows?

Yep, that's right. A buck for a one-way ticket between Oahu and Kauai or Maui.

[alphie]

Speaking of ancient origins:

"STUDIO 7 ON THE SUNSET STRIP (NBC) - Steven Weber ("The D.A.") reportedly has been cast in the lead role of the Aaron Sorkin-led drama project, about the lives of those that work on a long-running "Saturday Night Live"-esque sketch-comedy show based in Los Angeles. Said development comes after both Matthew Perry ("Friends") and Bradley Whitford ("The West Wing") passed on the role. No other details were given. (Again, thanks to TV Guide's "Ask Ausiello" column for the tip!)"

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=7053

[Donna Queen]

But even in that Arcadian past, you at least had the occasional opportunity to slip off into the woods and enjoy a solitary contemplative moment out of earshot without fear of being summoned back by an electronic ring tone.

[Karen]

I understand what you're saying, Lance, but I'm not sure I agree with you.

First of all, countries like China and Israel, where family is strong and proximate (have you ever BEEN on a kibbutz? yikes--and yes, I know there's more to Israel than kibbutzim), have some of the highest per capita cellphone numbers in the world. So, cellphone use is not just about maintaining or recreating a lost paradise of multi-generational, since many of the most cellphone-populous countries already have that.

And, as Donna Queen notes, there was once not only an ability, but a desire, to go off on one's own and commune with one's thoughts. That no longer seems even to be of interest to most people. They can't exist without checking their devices, even in the subways where they can't even get a damn signal. It's not just about constant communication--it's about constant external stimulation...if they're not calling, being called, checking messages, texting, whatever, then they're playing solitaire or whatever the hell else sits on those damn things. No one sits with their thoughts anymore.

Me, I got a cellphone about 6 months ago, after years of mulish refusal, because it's not just that payphones are disappearing, it's that the ones that are left aren't being maintained. I rarely found a receiver that I wanted to have anywhere near my head. I got rid of my landline, because I couldn't understand paying for two different versions of a device I hate using in the first place (if I can't talk to you viva voce, I much prefer email). And now I do love having my cellphone--but that's because I now use it as my alarm clock. Really cleared off my bedside table!!

[Kevin Wolf]

Lance, your theory is worth thinking about but I, too, doubt if it's correct. Problem is, in the old days of reaching out and touching someone it would be for contact or comfort or verifying the safety of a family member or friend.

Certainly, you can check on loved ones by cell phone but you can't actually verify how safe they are, or keep them safe. (As many movie thriller writers well know.)

And though you can try to use phones for that purpose, I almost never see anybody (hear anybody) doing that. Instead it's people running up minutes. It's making sure you know I'm in the car on my way home, which I was most likely doing anyway. It's gossiping 24 hours a day, not just when my friends are around. It's annoying those around who don't happen to be on their phones -- yet.

[Ken Houghton]

I note, strictly for the record that the last time I was completely out of touch (no mobile, no news access) for a week, Tiananmen Square happened.

It is true that I am more surprised now when an area has no cell reception than when it does. But, as with the last two commenters, I doubt it means that we're trying to verify safety.

Otherwise, those left-turners at the jughandle with one hand on the wheel and one hand on the mobile wouldn't exist, instead of being a dominant breed.

[Michael Bains]

I'm actually quite surprised at the number of folks who still maintain a "landline". I haven't had one for over 5 years now. What's the point? If I don't want to take a call, I either stop the ring or shut off my phone ahead of time (as when in a Dr's office or the like.)

There're no LD fees for Celluar (nor for IP Tele, to be fair) and the fact that I can text a simple "I'll be late/OK/luv u 2!" rather than getting caught up in the back-n-forth of a conversation (pleasant or otherwise) is a convenience that's well worth the now only slightly greater expense of mobile vs land. There really is just no non-emotional Reason for land lines any longer.

I also DO subscribe to your theory, Lance. Karen's point about the "kibbutzers" being such fierce users of mobile supports it completely.

And none of that discounts the fact that some folks are addicts and annoying as all get out in the way they use the things. But the commonality of raging alcoholics doesn't stop me from enjoying a drink now and then, so why should the existence of Crackberry addicts affect my cell use?

Sorry I've been scarce cuz of all the strangeness in my life lately, Lance. I forgot how much I really love your blog. "See ya" soon!