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| This 'phone' would definitely freak out the kiddies |
As in the landline, the one that’s actually hooked up to cables and theoretically provides your phone calls with a sense of security that our cellphones don’t.
SERIOUSLY,
THE LEGISLATURE is considering a request that the laws obligating AT&T to
make landline phone service available to everybody in Illinois should be
abolished.
The
entity we used to jokingly refer to as “Ma Bell” (a reference that may, in and
of itself, age me) says so many people now rely on cellphones exclusively for
their phone service that the old requirement is a financial burden because it
requires them to maintain an infrastructure of cables that is no longer
necessary for people to speak to each other via the “telephone.”
Now
before I proceed, I probably should point out that I gave up a landline about
one year ago. I rely exclusively on the “smart phone” (which often makes me
feel dumb) for the ability to make calls, and also keep up with the
work-related e-mails I get from people who think the best way to get my attention
is to tap out a few characters of the English alphabet, then hit the “send”
key.
Yes,
I get those e-mails, but I often am astounded at how atrocious their spelling
and grammar is. I also have to admit that many of the e-mails I get wind up
being deleted unread – particularly the ones that are blatant appeals for me to
donate money to yet another political gasbag of a candidate.
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| Confounding telecommunications?!? |
BUT
I HAVE to admit that even though I gave up a landline (I found that the people
who were calling me were overwhelmingly using my cellphone number), I miss it.
Particularly when I see other people who use the “freedom” of not having a
phone cord to deal with to become so meandering and thoughtless that they lose
track of what is going on around them.
Besides,
I also wonder what it is with our contemporary society that they don’t fully
appreciate how much of their privacy they give up when they do away with a
cord. Because the reality is that there is no assurance that people aren’t
listening in on all our cellphone calls, or reading every single e-mail sent to
us through that “phone.”
Doing
away with landline requirements might be accepting a certain reality, but it
also means our reality is getting a little less logical.
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| Just trying paying a phone bill in this box! |
Then
again, I’m becoming an old man, and I know watching younger people, particularly
my teenage niece Meira. I could go on and on about all the stupid, trivial
things she looks at (mostly video snippets of people doing pointless things)
when using her phone.
BUT
THE CONCEPT that most catches my attention is that she seems to resent it
whenever anyone actually “calls” her and expects to have a traditional phone
conversation.
She
and her friends don’t even bother to pick up on those calls, and ignore the
messages that get left. Although they don’t seem to mind having conversations
where they can look into their “phones” and see each other – usually in such
close-up that their facial features become freakish and unrecognizable.
The
“phone” truly has become a toy, one used for video games and watching video
snippets and, occasionally, to talk to each other. I’m sure the loss of the
cables that maintain “real” phone service won’t be missed.
Except
by those cranks such as myself – the kind of people who looked at the Tuesday
morning news reports in absolute astonishment that the Chicago White Sox signed
their shortstop, Tim Anderson, to a contract providing $25 million during the
next six seasons.
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| The high price of competence |
Although
I suppose there are those people who will say I ought to take my out-of-date complaints
and make them to someone with a landline phone so we can rant and rage about
how the world has gone amok.
-30-
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