WIRE YOUR CELL PHONE TO YOUR BRAIN? WHY NOT?

The idea of cell phones has been around since the 1940’s when Dick Tracy used his wrist phone to apprehend criminals.

There was Maxwell Smart and his shoe phone,

 and Star Wars and the flip-phone.

Practical cell phones came around after 2000, and for the last twenty years phones have become more innovative and more popular; and now a cell phone is probably the most important object that everyone owns. 

   

Elementary school kids carry cell phones; and teenagers and young adults would be dysfunctional without their phones.

Being and old man from the days of telephones that were connected by telephone operators, I often joke that if people could they would have their phones embedded in their brains.

Now that is not so far fetched.

 

A company formed by Elon Musk is developing a devise that connects your brain to a smartphone.

  Dozens of wire implants will be connected to a transmitter that tucks behind the ear like a hearing aid and transmits signals to your computer or smart phone. 

This is not a new idea, as scientist have been testing brain implants on paralyzed patients, allowing them to move computer cursors and robotic arms.

But now, Musk predicts he will have a telepathy device for healthy people within a decade. 

Do you really think that young people will not line up for 24/7 cell phone implants? 

   I have no doubt that within fifty years everyone will be a walking cell phone.

the Ol’Buzzard

TURN OFF YOUR PHONE

I was raised in the fifties and lived through the sixties and seventies – and there were no cell phones.   If you were at work and needed to call home, you went to a phone and made your call.   If you were traveling you waited until you got to your destination to make your call.   No one felt the need to have a telephone with them at all times; and people were able to do things without obsessing that they might miss a call, or a text from a friend shopping at a grocery store and posting about the price of peas.

If you are a professional on call I can understand you need; but the average person does not need to be tied to a telephone.  You are not that important.  And the idiot walking around Walmart with the cyborg phone blinking in his ear…; and anyone who has their cell phone ring during a movie or a play should have the phone shoved up their ass. 

Ok, I am antiquated, archaic, unfashionable, out-of-date, outmoded, , behind the times; but this obsession with a cell phone is really ridiculous. 

Old man yelling at clouds

the Ol’Buzzard 

ALIENS WALK AMONG US

Aliens walk among us!  Really! 

I know this for a fact: because I am one.   

I am not from a different planet or galaxy; but have traveled from a different time. 

Somehow I have made this trip into a future that I am not completely comfortable with and do not fit in. 

In my world as a youth, telephone calls were made with an operator assistance.   We did not have a TV until I was seventeen.   Personal computers did not exist during most of my life.   People read books and talked to each other; they wrote lengthy letters to keep in touch with people far away.   There was no fast food when I was raised so most people ate at home around a table.  My world was slower and less hurried.

I have time traveled and adapted - until recently.   Now I have passed a time travel point where I refused to continue: I will remain as I am while the world moves on to some bizarre conclusion.   I do not carry a cell phone – I refuse to be controlled by electronic objects.   I will read actual books, I will take slow walks and appreciate nature.  I have unplugged from society and the travelers still advancing into the future.

The travelers, the young people of today are as foreign to me as people of another planet.   I do not speak their language; I am not interested in their entertainment’s; I do not care to be involved with them, nor they with me; we have nothing in common, and I am good with that.  

There are times I would travel back to if that were possible; but as it is not - I will remain in this time for the time I have left.

The Ol’Buzzard

VISIBLE EVOLUTION

Here in Maine we have had torrential rain for the last two days.   Yesterday I drove into town and on the way I saw a young woman walking in the downpour, holding an umbrella while focusing on her cell phone held a foot from her face.   I could not help but wonder what world her mind was in. 

In 1970 Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock pose the proposition that man could not adapt to rapid change; that like evolution, social and environmental changes must occur slowly in order for humans to adapt.   This is now easily disproved.

The most massive changes in human history has occurred over the last forty years and man not only adapted, but led the demand.

During the 1980’s basic personal computers became available.  These computers were able to run simple word processing programs and games.   Since that time, we have the internet, a truly world wide web, extremely powerful personal computers, cell phones, social media, GPS and now driverless cars.    Changes have come so fast that often a product is outmoded before it’s released.   People will wait in lines all night to buy the newest iPhone. 

This technology has brought about a rapid cultural change.  People have become less personally interactive as they live vicarious lives on social media.   A recent study claimed that people between the age of 16 and 35 will interact with their cell phones an average of 150 times a day: e-mails, social media, blogs, text messages, phone calls, games, photos, special aps – the cell phone now tends to regulate our life.

This constant obsession of being plugged into technology has got to be rewiring our brain and, perhaps in a dystopian fashion, leaving us vulnerable to programming by those that would control us. 

the Ol'Buzzard

CELL PHONE ETIQUETTE

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD

Yesterday I used my cell phone for the second time this year.   I called a small general store for a steak and cheese sandwich to go, on the way home from running errands.  

I got this phone in Alaska in 2005 when I was principal of three Native schools in the southeast tundra.   It was necessary I stay in connect with the schools and the district office whenever I was out of the villages.  

I pay $100 a year for 250 minutes through an Alaska communication company, and have found that I cannot find a comparable offer here in Maine - so I keep the Alaskan phone service.  

At present I have over 2000 minutes available; and though I carry the phone whenever we travel, or I am on the bike (motorcycle,) I never turn it on unless I need to make a call – which is almost never.   I don’t even know how to retrieve messages and missed calls and really don’t give a fuck.   I am not so important that I can’t wait until I get home and check my answering machine or e-mail.

I am not opposed to technology; I use TomTom when I travel, I enjoy the computer and I believe that technology is the only thing that may save the human race at some time in the future.    

But, no one needs to be connected 24/7.   No one needs to be communicating by text or telephone while driving; no one needs to have their phone turned on in a restaurant, movie, playhouse or other public venue.   The idea that anyone needs to sit in a restaurant with friends or family and check their e-mail or text is absurd and ignorant.

 

And, if you walk around with that thing that looks like a leach hanging out of your ear, and you are not an emergency room doctor on call, you are an…

Turn off your cell phone.   You are not that important.

The Ol’Buzzard

CELL PHONE SEX

I recently saw a commercial where a mother hands her cell phone to her young child to keep him occupied while traveling in her car.     The young generation is being indoctrinated to cell phone use at prekindergarten age. 

 

   Without cell phones our society would be crippled and young people would be traumatize.   

The cell phone is no longer a convenience; but has become a necessary connection to the human body.   I wonder how many people would opt for a cell phone implant?

When my wife and I were burning up the bed sheets we use to reach for a cigarette after sex.   I wonder if now the first thought of young couples in the after glow of sex is to reach for their cell phones and check their text messages?

(now after burning up the bed sheets we now take a nap.)

the Ol’Buzzard