Gabriel Muniz – Special to the Southern News
Cell phones and computers are the most innovative and profitable pieces of technology. They have become one in the same with the advent of smartphones. But they are more than just connecting the peoples of the world. Smartphones have greatly assisted in the perpetuation of engendering an almost sub human population and ill-informed public, leaving many users with only the illusion of choice.
Because of their immediacy and connectedness, smartphones have come to replace the art of the conversation. It might not be much of a stretch to say that they have contributed to the more subtle plague affecting the youth of this generation—semi-literacy. A generation has been led to communicate in instant message vernacular: “How r u?” and “lol.”
This cellphone semi-literacy plague has also virtually done away with the art of letter writing. Once the quintessential way of expressing deep love for a significant other has now taken to the modern text message for a break up or a quick hook up.
Texting while driving, well that only goes to show how dominant a force and how unhealthy a habit a touch screen with numbers can be for both the distracted driver and innocent bystander.
This device does more than just take pictures, connect to the web, and benefit from the usage of millions of apps. Like a microwave that emits radiation, cell phones reduce men’s sperm count and negatively affect women who store their phone in the bra area according to some studies. So health hazards and the short-changing of language and expression aside, it is time to tackle that which the smartphone phenomenon claims to do best—connect people and keep them up to date.
If celebrity gossip, Facebook likes, tweets by the rich and famous, and other trends is what constitutes being informed, then, yes, cell phones have done their job. Indeed, this is what, with assistance of social networking, they do best: keep the masses in endless delusion. If a well-produced online campaign advocates for the removal a warlord no longer living in the country he supposedly attacked and pillaged, this is exactly what they will do—“paint the city red,” as the production said to do, which is code word for propaganda. Remember this? If not, it is Kony 2012, the online sensation that took the hearts and minds of people to unite for a cause–to hate Joseph Kony, who Ugandans repeatedly said was no longer in their country, tried and imprisoned–that was really an experiment in mind control.
Funded by likes of billionaire, George Soros, “Occupy Wall Street,” a movement later became hijacked by a strange “Anonymous” group is another example of cell phones and social networking gone wrong. What exactly were the demands of this nationwide movement—to this day, nobody knows. Seen from the perspective of someone who is not as plugged in, though, the purpose boiled down to something along the lines of: recruit as many people as possible and make as much noise until the operation gets shut down. Cell phones, clearly, have streamlined the social networking recruiting process.
More than 90 percent of communication is said to be body language. In the world of cell phones, however, there is nobody and no language. The question is: how can you know how truthful someone is being with you if you cannot see or hear them? Social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, assisted greatly by smartphones all contribute to image fabrication. An innocent profile suddenly becomes the center stage for those who struggle with insecurity. That is, such people begin to portray an image that is not really them, but the person they want to be accepted as. The once shy girl comes out of the closet and poses in a sexually suggestive way, while the scrawny dude in high school who nobody knew suddenly undergoes a transformation like the one Jim Carrey underwent in the movie “the Mask.”
If everyone on the user’s friend list does this, as far-fetched as it sounds, then are they really well-meaning friends or reinvented images created to get more likes, hits, and followers? Cell users who use these sites essentially become what author Sherry Turkle notes in the title of her book: “Alone together.” The subtitle of the book, “Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other,” sums up in question-form the thesis of this article—relentless pursuit of connectivity through such mediums as the ever-advancing smart phone can leave individuals alone, language-deficient, propagandized, and, yes, with health complications.
