A story of a Mobile Phone (April, 2009)

1. Read the piece of writing closely and try to learn the terms in bold

2. Can you describe the young teenager who tells the story?
Analyse his language and point of view.
3. There is another point of view in the story, belonging to an adult this time.
Are you able to distinguish between this point of view and the teen's one?
The day my parents got me a mobile/cell phone I went mad with excitement. I was big enough to keep my own communication system going on: have my friends contacted every single minute of the day; receive surprise rings any moment; avoiding feeling alone ever; being able to disconnect from study any time… that was good. And what sounded even better, being told the answers at exams, taking photos of whoever I felt like photographing …It was as if I could grasp the whole world in my single hand.
I walked on down the street and on either side there were phone shops entreating me to buy the latest camera/mp3 player/mobile phone with more minutes per month than I could possible use. I was like everyone else now. Everywhere, people were sitting in parks, cafes, walking down the street, all with phones pressed against their ears. Eventually, I was exactly the same as them. I could talk non-stop. It was unnecessary envying all those who had the invisible headsets that make it impossible to distinguish them from the insane who argue with themselves in public. I also could look as if I were arguing with myself in public and that was also good.
I felt so sociable and secure that I needed my phone to ring twenty, thirty times a day -confirmation that there was someone on this planet who valued out existence, at least enough to press a few buttons and use up some of their monthly phone plan?
People thought beepers were the cool thing, the communication buzzers that added bulge to your jeans pockets. I didn’t mind comments on how they soon switched from risking testicular cancer to the more fashionable perils of brain tumours and there was no looking back, they said, which I did not mind at all, being young enough to watch health problems at a distance.
At times, I loved them with a passion. I’ve lost count of how many nonsense conversations have been interrupted by an insistent Nokia. The moment of seduction, offering condolences to the bereaved, an incredible sunset. That seemed funny to me. The best one I heard though was from an English woman who still shivered at the memory; she had been in church at the funeral of her husband’s aunt when she heard a phone ringing somewhere. Naturally, she assumed an indignant pout and started shooting silent glares around the pews. Who could be so gauche as not to turn off their phone before entering a funeral? The ringing stopped and then started again – clearly this was not a caller to be put off by an answering service.
By now even the vicar had halted his speech and hushed whispers were growing in volume within the acoustics of the old stone church. Suddenly she was seized by a growing panic as she realized that her handbag was shaking. She opened the flap and perceived in the same moment as the entire congregation that she was the culprit. She snatched the phone with shaking hands but as she had only bought it the week before she had no idea how to turn it off. With 500 pairs of eyes fixed menacingly upon her she fumbled with the buttons in vain. With each second her husband grew violently tense at her side.
Finally he did the decent thing and grabbed the phone from her now paralyzed hands, dropped it on the floor and stamped on it. That didn’t quite do the trick though and he was obliged to stand up and jump on the thing before silence was restored to the ceremony. Apparently no one saw the funny side and the vicar even rubbed it in with some stern words about propriety in the House of the Lord.
The experience hadn’t been so shocking to me… the moment when I was at my eldest brother’s violin concert, playing on a Mozart piece when it was heard the same Mozart piece ringing tone coming from my personal mobile phone. People stared at me contemptuously. My brother would hate me deeply, but I was so caught by the idea of pure chance in the coincidence of a Mozart performance being echoed by a Mozart ringing tone that couldn’t feel much upset.
Mobile phones are probably one of the best examples of how technology can change the nature of social interaction, even how we see the world. Try watching movies made before 1998 and you’ll see a hundred different plot twists that would never have arisen had one of the protagonists been carrying a phone. A killer white shark is stalking you on your broken down boat? Call the coast guard and he’ll have you air-lifted out of there in minutes.
Another example: Call round to see a friend by chance and watch the expression of shock on their face as they open the door – ‘but, but you didn’t call first to check I was in!’ Did we really used to spend that much time locked out or lost or just plain hanging around place in silence and – god forbid – thinking about things? I mean, I don’t remember kicking my heels every day and wishing for the invention of portable communication. But now that it was there…
Mobile phones are obviously excellent inventions that save lives and boost your social life if you don’t spend much time at home anyway. In theory you can turn them off before you go into the cinema or be like the Japanese who have them set only on vibrate so that they won’t offend anyone. Like any technology, if used responsibly there’s no problem, so they say. Why it is that I enjoy using it as irresponsibly as possible?
Possibly, because hello? Take a look around the planet – this is not a responsible species we’re talking about. It reminds me of the Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin says something along the lines of ‘Call this the 21st century? Where are the ray guns? The invisibility devices? Teleportation? I mean I still have to press the buttons on the remote control!’ That is sort of a limitation to me. Hobbes then observes that perhaps we could do with learning how to handle the technology that we already have. And this is interesting enough, isn’t it?
Often it seems to me that our techy devices just amplify the human condition rather than change anything in particular. We were always a feckless, dissatisfied people but channel surfing made it visible. The neighbourhood teenager was always angry and troubled but now his ghetto blaster let everyone know about it. I am being watched and observed most carefully, and this is a fact I couldn’t quite rate as positive, negative or just neutral. It doesn’t affect to me any more. While we’re on the subject nervous, whiny people shouldn’t be allowed to have dogs because that’s exactly the same thing.
The point being that the way we use mobile phones just makes visible our neurotic tendencies like scratching a pencil over a drawing in wax.. We were always this nervous and insecure. Only now we have the device to play with in public and stroke when no one is looking. Or so they say, because I've never been aware of being nervous or insecure myself.
The best thing about mobile phones though was observed by a friend of mine the other day. We were talking about getting phone numbers from girls and the whole drama of then calling them up. He remarked philosophically:
“The advent of mobile phones meant you never had to speak to a girl’s parents ever again. You always get through directly to her.”
Then again with caller ID, getting her to answer the damn thing is another story.
And I do like stories to be told.
This is a piece of writing coming from two sources: www.tomthumb.org/essays/phones.shtml -
And my own personal writing, Mari Carmen López Sanjuán