My commute to work takes me through Mercerville’s Five Points, a name I believe refers as much to the shape of the intersection as it does to what driving through the crossroads adds to your blood pressure.
It’s something headscratching there every day, but one motorist’s move a few weeks ago really caught my attention. It was perhaps one of the most oblivious lane changes in history, one of those instances where the other driver drifts into your lane so much you might as well be in his passenger’s seat.
As the wretch glided into my space, I glanced over to see him. I noticed white wires dangling from his ears, growing larger as he piloted his vehicle closer to mine. As he successfully cut me off, the wires disappeared from view, and all I could see was his car emitting a jubilant puff of exhaust as he drove off.
It was then it hit me what exactly those ear appendages were: earphones. He was wearing white earphones! While driving!
Enraged, I thought, “There must be a law against this.” As it turns out, there are no laws against this. It is perfectly legal in 33 states, including New Jersey. My only solace, at that point, was he was simply doing something dangerous—and nothing illegal, like pumping his own gas or knitting during fishing season.
It made me wonder what exactly was so urgent that he had to wear headphones while driving. Did he have an important phone call? Maybe his car radio broke?
I don’t really know this person’s circumstance, so it’s unfair to lump too much blame on him. After all, he’s just one of the many people with white tentacles growing out of their heads and little black boxes sewn to their hands. Sufferers of Phone Psychosis are all around us, they’re multiplying, and they’re unaware of anything more than a few inches beyond their nose.
These types of people are easy to spot. They’re the ones fiddling with Facebook while watching TV, or the ones engrossed in Candy Crush at the dinner table. They’re folks who turn to the phone whenever there’s a question that requires more than a millisecond to solve, like “What song is this?” or “What movie do I know that guy from?” They’re the expert typists who spend the entire train ride to New York texting, only to continue texting as they shuffle—necks craned down—off of the train, out of Penn Station and across 33rd Street.
You probably know someone like this, but you might have trouble diagnosing yourself. Do you own a smartphone? Do you feel a gravitational pull toward it whenever you have a free second? Yes? Well, then, you probably have Phone Psychosis.
I’m not casting stones. Even I’ve fallen victim to the sickness. In early April, during a hike around Baldpate Mountain, I had a water bottle in one hand and my iPhone in the other. The phone provided easy access to maps, a camera and—most importantly—Instagram, which would allow me to upload my photos for all my friends to see. I don’t really remember the hike—having spent most of it looking at my phone—but I have plenty of great photos of the places I don’t recall.
Doing this in nature, where I can really only harm myself, is one thing. The problems start when the negligent behavior starts affecting other people. Take this March 2014 study from the academic journal Pediatrics, where researchers observed all the people with one or more young children who dined at fast food restaurants in a single city. Of the 55 observed “caregivers,” 40 used their mobile phones during the meal—nearly 73 percent. Usage could be anything from checking a text message to handing the phone off to pacify the children.
The researchers concluded that the more absorbed the caregivers were in their phones, the more harsh their response to child misbehavior. But could it be the kids misbehaved because their caregiver wasn’t paying attention to them—or anything else?
For a December 2012 study in Injury Prevention, researchers watched out for these oblivious types on the move. They observed more than 1,000 people crossing busy intersections in downtown Seattle. The study found 29.8 percent of all pedestrians performed a distracting activity while crossing, such as listening to music, text messaging or otherwise using a mobile phone. Texting pedestrians took 18 percent longer to cross the road, and were 3.9 times more likely than undistracted pedestrians to disobey lights, cross mid-intersection or fail to look both ways prior to crossing.
It really begs a question: Why is there such urgency to use phones every waking second? Our mobile phones go with us everywhere. They are the first thing many of us look at when we wake up, and the last before we go to sleep. Surely, that phone call can wait 30 minutes while you drive to work, that text message a few seconds while you cross the road. Mobile phones aren’t like biceps. Even if you don’t use it, you won’t lose it.
The free enterprise system has attempted to cure this problem by creating products that force people to put their phones out of service. Really, it is as simple as switching the darned thing off. But the marketplace has something for you if that’s too much to ask. One such widget, called Blokket, is a sleeve for your phone that blocks cellular signals and keeps the screen hidden from view. Your phone won’t receive calls or text messages, and the screen will be blanked—it’s turning off your phone for people who can’t bear to turn off their phones.
At the same time, the market has tried to advance the march of Phone Psychosis, namely by taking the phone out of the equation. Pretty soon, you won’t even have to hold your device. You can just wear it.
San Francisco—the city that begets technology trends—is having particular issues with early adopters of one such product, Google Glass. Google has marketed it as the first wearable computer. The product, in very rough terms, is a $1,500 pair of eyeglass frames with a tiny unit attached. This unit responds to the wearer’s voice, and can take photos and videos of what users see while also projecting information, such as driving directions or Internet searches, into their field of vision.
These pioneers call themselves “Glass Explorers.” Others call them a portmanteau of “glass” and a derogatory term that ends in “oles.” You can fill in the blank.
People in San Francisco have been accosted and even assaulted for wearing Google Glass. A technology journalist in the city said a woman ripped the device off his face, yelled “Glass!” at him and smashed the frames. In another incident, a video taken by a pair of Google Glass shows patrons of a bar asking the wearer to take the device off, coincidentally afraid she may be recording them. They then try taking it off themselves when the wearer doesn’t comply.
Violence isn’t the answer, but perhaps this shows that people have started to rebel against the gradual integration of man and machine. Odds aren’t good, though. Similar reports surfaced when the iPhone first launched.
Now? Well, let’s just say I researched for this column the way everyone finds information these days—on my iPhone.
