Maybe, just maybe, it’s not too late

“Remember the good times? When phones were dumb, and people were smart?”

— Spotted on a tee shirt. Worn by someone using a smartphone.

Old movies and television shows are the best. People enjoying life with each other. Without a cell phone. Talking, when necessary, on phones tethered to the wall with a cord.

In that not-so-long-ago time when no one was expected to be instantly and always available. Before being anatomically attached to a cell phone was considered a vital sign in the ER.

“Is he going to make it, Doc?” “It doesn’t look good. His heartbeat is strong, but he’s losing cell phone signal.”

Who can argue that smartphones have enhanced some aspects of life? But who can deny that, like most technology hailed with the hooray of reducing workload and making life easier, they have also heaped harmful effects on society?

With all this weighing heavy on my mind last week, I launched an experiment. I turned off my phone. Off. Not silenced. For 24 whole hours.

It was pure heaven. Serene and peaceful. I can’t wait to go back.

After a couple of hours, I did start to think my kids might try to contact me. My daughter started practicing cell phone use only for selected hours long ago. She would understand. And my son? He calls more than my daughter, but he’s a busy guy and travels a lot. If he misses me, he’ll call back.

Someone involving business may need me. Maybe not. This was a Saturday.

Satisfied that anyone wanting to talk to me could wait, I relaxed and enjoyed the bliss of no one “reaching out to touch me.” To coin a twist on an old AT&T jingle.

But when I turned it back on … “Have I offended you?” The tone of the first text message was hurt.

“Haven’t you seen that message I sent you? It’s been half an hour since I sent it, and I haven’t heard from you,” the next one inquired. Frustration.

“Where are you,” another yelled? Impatience.

I think the idea of going “you can’t hear me now” mode first occurred to me a couple of weeks ago. In a meeting where everyone was reviewing reports and participating in discussions. At least doing a better than reasonable job of pretending to be interested.

Except this one guy. Head bowed. “How inspiring,” I thought. “While the rest of us are laboring with the load, he is praying for divine guidance in plotting a financial course.”

Then I saw it— thumbs flying on his cell phone under the table. “It must be important business,” I thought. Turned out it was important enough that he spent the entire meeting head down, looking at his phone. Chuckling occasionally.

Or maybe it was the day I heard someone shout, “What’s the matter with this guy? Everybody today has a cell phone permanently attached to their hip.” Frustration because the aggravated individual had not received a response— in less than five minutes.

Actually, his description varied slightly regarding the exact part of human anatomy to which he felt phones were forever affixed, but you get my drift.

Truthfully, when you notice how many people have cell phone protrusions in their pockets and which pocket predominately protrudes … I don’t know. Maybe his impatient analogy was more than a metaphor.

Call me crazy, I know, but I bought an old phone at an antique store, just like the one we had at home when I was a kid.

A black one with a dial. Ours was in the kitchen. It was the only phone in the house. Convenience or coincidence, the cord was long enough to reach the dining room to grab a chair to talk.

“Leon, the phone’s for you.” My sister sounded perturbed. “Hurry up. I’m expecting a call,” was her last shot.

“You kids get off that phone, now,” Mom chided from the living room where she watched Perry Mason. “It’s a school night.”

It was a few years later when she stood on the front porch and said, “Bye. Call me when you get there. Call me from a payphone if you need me along the way. I love you.” I was leaving Mount Pleasant, driving to my uncle’s house in California. I was nineteen years old, way before cell phones were even science fiction.

My favorite act of rebellion against being surgically attached to a cell phone might be the one I pull in restaurants. Where for some inexplicable reason, business associates and family alike feel it’s rude to ignore messages, but not those with whom they’re having dinner.

When that happens, I ask everyone to place their cell phone in the middle of the table. Once all the phones are stacked neatly together and curiosity peaks, I announce, “First one to touch their phone picks up the tab for the whole table.”

Then I start a conversation. People enjoying life with each other. Without a cell phone.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s not too late to reverse the intelligence of people and phones— back to the way it used to be.

----—Contact Leon Aldridge at leonaldridge@gmail.com. Other Aldridge columns are archived at leonaldridge. com