Wireless weirdness

A few anxious moments preceded the opening ceremonies of the “100 Years of Anne/Tribute to Lucy Maud Montgomery” festivities in Uxbridge, Ontario, recently.

Our event chair, Coun. Pat Mikuse, got a distress call on her cellphone. The caller was Durham MPP John O’Toole, one of the dignitaries expected to speak at the event. As Coun. Mikuse explained to me later, our guest inquired: “Where are you?”

“I can’t hear you,” Coun. Mikuse said. “I’ll move away from the stage.”

“Where are you?” MPP O’Toole repeated.

“I’m behind the stage,” she answered. “Where are you?

“I’m in front of the stage.”

It turns out the two politicians, quite innocently, were mere metres apart. Each was on a cellphone. Neither could hear the other over the noise of the crowd. However, had either of two cellphone callers looked up, one would almost certainly have seen the other. And the momentary panic about whether they’d connect before it was time to go on stage during the opening ceremonies would never occurred. If ever there was one, here was an example of the cellphone exacerbating a problem, not solving it.

I tell this story not to ridicule either of the politicians in this case. For politicians, journalists, police, the military, from business moguls to cab drivers, indeed, from parents to their children, the cellphone has emerged as the world’s most precious communications tool. It’s today’s do-or-die sales vehicle. It’s become life’s conduit to information whether at work or at play. It’s now the most vital appliance in anybody’s pocket or purse.

I guess what I don’t understand, however, is how we have allowed cellphones to become our modern-day umbilical cords. I had a meeting with an woman in an office the other day. She was in a real flap because she’d accidentally left her cellphone at home.

“I feel absolutely naked without it,” she said. I almost burst out laughing at the thought.

On a spring day in 1999, I remember walking in the streets of Oslo with the rest of my tourist family. It was Norway’s national holiday – May 17. The city was crammed with people and adorned with bunting and flags as far as the eye could see. All along the main thoroughfares of the city, groups of people – each with the distinctive colours and fashions of their home regions – moved towards the royal palace, where the King and Queen waved as a mammoth children’s parade passed before their reviewing stand. Clustered everywhere were youths strolling, laughing and talking. Not to each other, but into their cellphones.

At that time, Norway claimed to have the most cellphones per capita of any nation on the planet. I didn’t speak any Norwegian, but I could imagine the first words spoken each time one of those kids answered his/her cellphone.

“Where are you?” I’m sure they asked.

It’s the new way people greet each other on cellphones today. Not “Hello” or “Hi. How are you?” but “Where are you?” It’s a kind of 21st century affirmation of existence. I am here on a cellphone, therefore I am.

If I thought I’d seen the last of escalating cellphone madness in Norway, I was sadly mistaken. Earlier this month, the federal ministry known as Industry Canada announced something called “a spectrum auction.” In short, a whole array of wireless phone service providers have been invited to bid for space on 40 per cent of the national airwave space. They will challenge the so-called big three – Bell, Telus and Rogers – for your cell-phone business (and in so doing, probably increase Canada’s cellphone use to more than 90 per cent of the population).

They’ll be offering potential Canadian customers such new gadgets as dual-screen flip phones, handsets with 3D display, cellphones that replace laptops, and what are called “all-you-can-eat plans” offering unlimited local- and long-distance calling, voice mail, text messaging, picture messaging, Web access and e-mail access, not to mention the capability to download a gazillion songs, movies and GPS directions.

As the <em>National Post</em> reported last week, “such futuristic phones … (will) make Dick Tracy green with envy.”

The irony of cellphone mania, I guess, is that the more sophisticated and widespread this wireless technology becomes, the less effective the resulting communication. Like the two politicians trying to find each other in the crowded street by cellphone, when a simple glance around would have sufficed, we’ve become slaves to wireless telephony.

Can you imagine the original conversation between the telephone’s inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, and his loyal assistant, Thomas Watson, if they’d been experimenting with the world’s first cellphone?

“Watson, where are you?”

“In the next room. But my SIM card’s just expired. I’ll have to call you back.”


About Ted Barris

Ted Barris is an accomplished author, journalist and broadcaster. As well as hosting stints on CBC Radio and regular contributions to the national press, he has authored 18 non-fiction books and served (for 18 years) as professor of journalism/broadcasting at Centennial College in Toronto. He has written a weekly column/webblog - The Barris Beat - for more than 30 years.

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