[James] Mobile thoughts and Scotty's beam

We rely on them for everything these days, and not just for emergencies or business, but to entertain and occupy our quiet moments. 

James B. Solomon

The ubiquitous cell phone has come a long way from Science Fiction creator Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek" communicator that allowed away teams to maintain contact with their ship orbiting the planet above. Today, it's possible to call the International Space Station from your mobile device, yet most people on public transportation would ask Scotty to beam the loud talking fool on his cell phone up, up and away.

"What would you do if your phone rang while on the bus?" You would answer it. As suggested in Steven Covey's four quadrants  of time management, a  telephone call falls into the two Urgent Quadrants as either Important or Unimportant therefore making the need to answer/connect with the caller, a priority.

Today, everyone is connected to the other via different social media platforms and wired into devices that lock out their quiet moments, our thoughts and each other, for many ,the ride on a bus or a train holds welcome respite from having to interact. One can be among people and actually have a quiet moment with oneself or at the very least, read an actual book, newspaper or magazine. However, for many, living in a World where we either have no choice or are addicted to being connected to everything at the same time, time away from our "digital umbilical cords" creates an uncomfortable disconnect. Being on the phone wherever we are is a welcome respite from being disconnected in spite of society's unwritten rules of etiquette. Maybe our real annoyance is rooted in our own disconnect.

The questions we need to ask as we debate this concern are, are we truly annoyed at being disturbed by someone speaking on their cell phone on the bus, or is it that, we wish that we ourselves were having a conversation with someone at that very moment?  Maybe as we have become more technologically advanced with our communication tools, it is our communication skills with each other that still need a lot of work, and all we need to do to address this, is to simply turn to the person next to us and say "Hello".

James B. Solomon from Trinidad and Tobago