Mobile Reliant. Or How I learned to stop worrying and love the
payphone!
I'm waiting for a friend to pick me up. There are nine people
coming for dinner and I'm cooking. Our whole evening depends on
my hasty retrieval from the train station, and I've forgotten my
mobile phone. I was standing on the platform, fumbling for it in
my bag, when I realised my phone was absent. I had told my
friend that I'd call her when I arrived at the station.
Unsettled, but not yet disturbed, I located the nearest payphone
and picked up the receiver. It was then it dawned on me: I
didn't know the number. The number was in my mobile phone! So,
now I am sitting outside the station wondering why I didn't
specify a time or place to be picked up. I watch other commuters
rushing out of the station. I envy them their good memories and
handheld gadgets. "Hi, mate. Yeah I'm at the station. Where are
you?", a man declares to the other half of the conversation,
instantaneously cementing his plans. I go to the payphone and
call my boyfriend, I've been sensible enough to write a few
numbers in an archaic pocket address book. His mobile is
switched off. I leave a message asking him to tell my friend
that I'm waiting at the station. I pray that he gets it and
--heaven forbid-- his battery isn't flat. I wait. Waiting, I
seem to recall a distant time when there were no mobile phones.
What did we do? How did we live without them? Have we become
dependent upon mobiles?
In 2000, Anthony Townsend specualted that people were becoming
"dependent upon the connectivity that the mobile telephone
represents". Prior to mobile phones, schedules dictated the
movements of the people who adhered to them. Punctuality was
critical. If you arranged to meet a friend at 6pm then you had
to be there, or stand them up. Mobile phones allow you to call
your friend at 5:50pm and renegotiate."Information can be
updated in real-time, negating the need to plan anything". Many
people, Townsend argues, have grown accustomed to "the
flexibility of scheduling and the freedom from punctuality
permitted by the constant ability to update other parties as to
your status". Once your life includes the constant connectivity
provided by a mobile, it is almost impossible to disconnect.
Recent surveys in Britain and Korea support a finding of mobile
phone dependency among mobile users. Two-thirds of the Brits
surveyed by Lloyds TSB felt concerned if they left their mobiles
at home, some said they felt "freaked out and panicky". Marketing Insight found Korean users to be extremely
dependent upon mobiles; over half the respondents feel insecure
when their mobile battery runs flat. In the U.S there is concern
that dependency upon mobile phones may undermine self-reliance
and self-esteem. Psychologist Joseph Tecce told the Sacramento
Bee, "leaning heavily on cell phones for advice or
psychological nurturance is effective in reducing anxiety in the
short term...but a problem might arise without mobile phone, and
then helplessness rules the hour."
This brings us back to my current dilemma. I'm still waiting at
the train station, totally absorbed in conceiving this article.
It occurs to me that being "disconnected" has forced me to just
stay still. In this situation there is nothing for me to do: no
emails to check, nobody to talk to, nothing to read. I can only
relax and wait. The convenience of the mobile phone is the
ability to operate in real time--sending and receiving
information continuously. The downfall is that when we operate
in real time the speed of life increases, giving us less time to
just relax and wait.