[lit-ideas] Re: Talking Less, Texting More, Whither the phone call?
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:57:57 -0700
John McCreery wrote
Interesting trend.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/07/st_thompson_deadphone/> Have
you observed it?
Read it. What's not taken into consideration by these futurists is that
the population is aging. (Take me.) Eyes age too: I'll bet most of us on
the list wear glasses in order to see things close by. The wonderful
world of 'I just called you because I'm bored,' of games and pods and
cell phones, will become less and less user friendly. I'd like to tell
Steve Jobs that it's the thumbs, man, the thumbs. Someone whose
presbyopia and arthritis march together cannot work things that require
the perception and manipulation of tiny keyboards and buttons as easily
and life-changingly as the young, who seem to live everywhere and nowhere.
/A Play for Voices/
[Man picks up the receiver of a telephone and holds it to his ear]
Voice: 'Number, please.'
Man (speaking into the part of the telephone that isn't the receiver)
'Long distance please:'
Voice: 'One moment please.'
[old-fashioned electrical noises]
Second voice: 'This is long distance.'
Man: 'I'd like to call New York City, Butterfield 8.'
[sound of ringing]
[continued sound of ringing]
Second Voice: 'That number does not answer.'
Man (maybe): 'Thank you.'
/Postscript/. None of these characters would ever, /ever/, think of
saying 'Have a nice day.'
Robert Paul,
somewhere south of Reed College
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