I've been watching the AMC series "Mad Men" (great show, by the way) and it reminds me that, not so long ago, there was no escape from cigarette smoke. Everywhere, all the time.
Now that public smoking has been banished to windy corners of office buidings, cellphones have emerged as the "don't care about anyone else" tool of choice. A New York Times article quoted James Katz, director of the Center of Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University as saying: " If anything characterizes the 21st century, it's our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people."
And the backlash has already started. As often is the case, the backlash pioneers have resorted to extreme (and illegal) measures by using cellphone jammers that shut down cellphones within a certain range. This particular approach is unlikely to go mainstream but these pioneers may represent just the first wave from which a second and more profound wave will sometime emerge.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Cellphones, the cigarettes of the 21st century?
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