iPause for No Man

Pierre Messerli sees so many people walking around clutching and caressing various handheld devices that he wants to call the devices iPaws.

When I mentioned this to Gary Hanauer, he said we should invent iPaws for animals to communicate with us humans.

Michael Shaw was shocked (SHOCKED!) to see three generations of a family (grandmother, mother, daughter) engrossed in their individual cell phones (and not interacting at all) while sitting for 30 minutes in the waiting room at Michael's doctor's office.

And Joyce Washnik adds, "Isn't that sad? I see this all the time. Even couples out to dinner, with one (or both) checking their phones. You can't even walk in the woods anymore without hearing someone's cell ring. I think we should invent an iPause movement as an antidote to being plugged in 24/7. It's time to take a break, people!"

John Maybury, Editor and Publisher

Comments

[Mary Connell]

I think people have a heckuva lot more faith in their fellow man than they should -- especially the people who walk across six lanes of traffic with cell phones clamped to their ears.

I hate all phones, particularly those that ring (has to do with my irritation at being summoned), but cell phones in particular. I use mine for special occasions -- getting a flat tire, etc., which amounts to about 15 minutes a year, for which I shell out $30 a month to AT&T. Once told a nice young woman, an AT&T rep trying to sell me a souped-up plan and who refused to take "No" for an answer, that I hate phones so much, "I wish Alexander Graham Bell had never been born." That shut her up.

As for Gary's iPaws idea, the last thing my cat Molly needs is to be able to reach out and touch me telephonically.

[Mary Jana]

Boy, I’ll say!! You know, the other night meh big sis Kat and I went out to dinner and can you believe this? The couple sitting at the table next to us was using their cell phones to text to each other instead of just plain ol’ conversational talking. Geez! Just what kind of society have we become!?!

Well, not to be outdone, Kat and I decided that we would play one-upmanship on the couple and start texting messages to ourselves (not to each other) in a sort of smart-phone solitaire, messaging masturbation sort of way (apologies to the kiddies in the crowd for my use of the “m” word). And for those of you out there with your cranium in the compost heap, no, we didn’t have our phones set to vibrate mode.

[Abbie White]

I totally agree!!!!