The world is at your fingertips – but we don’t talk anymore

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

The phone used to be such a symbol of upward mobility that it was the first thing you were drawn to when you walked inside the front door of somebody’s house – like a big black chalice given its own altar of worship with a doorstop of a telephone directory for good measure.

Then it became portable – but no less of a status symbol – as wide boys reached into the bowels of the lining of their hopelessly rumpled jackets for their brick of a ‘mobile’ device to loudly make a call they didn’t need to, just to impress those still searching for two tuppences for the pay phone.

Next it became smaller, slimmer; able to do things you never dreamed of – and now it turns out we don’t use our phones for phone calls at all.

We still call them phones but in reality, they’re anything but; they’re cameras, digital devices, social media portals, e-readers, gaming devices, modern-day encyclopaedias – everything you could ever need, radiating in your pocket.

We still use them to contact people of course, but it’s by text or WhatsApp or Facetime or Facebook or Twitter; any way imaginable short of keying in a number and actually having a conversation.

Technology has come so far that now it’s less about ‘how are you?’ and more about ‘look at me’.

Because instead of saying: “I just rang to see how you were doing”, you’re more likely to say: “Guess where I’m texting from” – and then send a video clip from a concert you’re at or the top of a mountain you’re on or a pic of the dinner that’s just been left in front of you in some posh restaurant.

Of course, there are occasions when text or WhatsApp are an absolutely Godsend; like when you haven’t time for a chat but you just want to get a quick message to someone.

“It’s raining; can you give me a lift?”

“I’m in the office; won’t be home until late.”

“Can’t talk; at a meeting.”

“Can you do the pick-up/school run/leave out the bins/get milk?”

And texting – even badly, with appalling spelling and no punctuation – is particularly handy if you’re slightly drunk . . . unless it’s to profess undying love to a former girlfriend in the middle of the night.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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