Sell Phone

(Photo taken by CCC @ 42nd & Chester)

I look at this broken pay phone every morning as I wait for the trolley. I've been talking with a lot of people lately about cellphones and what they have done to us as a society. Can you imagine Seinfeld with cellphones? It would be a completely different show. That alone is an indication that they have changed the way we go about doing things.

A few things they have changed:

• Our conversations. It is now acceptable to breakaway from ANY conversation to answer the phone - regardless of who is calling, regardless of whether or not it is truly an emergency. And yes, I suppose our reasoning is that it might be an emergency. What did we used to do in emergencies?
  
• Our liability. Now with cellphones, we can cancel plans an hour beforehand. Many times via text message! Before cellphones, you simply did what you said you were going to do because if you didn't - someone would be waiting for you, and waiting for you, and waiting for you.
• Our attention spans. With the constantly rising technology of cellphones, there are unlimited games and music and other entertainment that accompany the basic dialing feature of a cellphone. Instead of reading or heck, just focusing on ONE TASK for more than 30 minutes - we now turn to our cellphones.
  

There are many other ways in which cellphones have socially changed us all. And to think, I was trucking along with my old LG with missing keys and a broken screen for the past 2 years until recently upgrading to the coveted iPhone. I'm a victim too - it's hard to escape cellphone culture as easy as it is to bash it.

I'm going to try to learn a lesson from the "sell phone" reminder every morning. Everything changes, and soon our iPhones will be retro - hanging in our faces with a witty graffiti caption.