The scene at some homes this Thanksgiving will be a table with a big turkey along with stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, string beans and pumpkin pie — and the people around the table, especially younger ones, ignoring each other as they stare at their cellphones.
I disapprove of such behavior and know when to put my phone away, but if you’re thinking this will be a tirade against technology and antisocial youth, you would be wrong.
While I won’t have my phone in hand during Thanksgiving dinner, it’ll be one of the things I’m giving thanks for.
As I’ve gotten older, more infirm and less able to get out, the phone has become a lifeline that allows me to stay in touch with family and friends, follow the news, do the research and writing that keeps me working, manage my finances, buy things I need and entertain myself with books, music, movies and games, all without stepping out.
So much physical stuff I once needed has been replaced by this tiny phone: the library, bedroom TV, laptop computer, checkbook, camera, tape recorder, music LPs and players, address book, calendar, watch, calculator, notebook, dictionary, credit cards, shopping catalogs, metronome, ukulele tuner, health monitors, map books, fax machine, document scanner, light switches.
With MS reducing my typing to one finger, I’ve pecked out or voice-dictated all of my writing on the phone for years — not only this column, but books I collaborated on.
I needed to be in a nursing facility for three months a couple of years ago, and the phone let me continue my work and much of my life as usual. Most people I interacted with from a hospital bed had no idea where I was.
I only wish I had such a device — once viewed as science fiction — when I was
a young reporter for the Honolulu Star-
Bulletin on the Big Island.
When Kilauea erupted, I’d have to rush
30 miles up the mountain, gather information and take pictures, speed back to Hilo to put the film on a flight to Honolulu — where a newspaper messenger would have to pick it up — and return to my office to write and transmit the story on a teletype machine. I’d be lucky if it got into the newspaper the next day.
With a smartphone I could have shot the photos and transmitted them from the eruption site, then repaired to the Volcano House bar to write my story on the phone and send it instantly. By the time I drove back to Hilo, street hawkers in Honolulu would be waving newspapers with my byline at passing motorists.
This symbol of modern technology is rightfully derided for the many crass, even sociopathic, uses it is put to.
But it can also be a life-changing tool, even world-
changing. Ask the oppressed people in Iran who can communicate with one another and fight back.
Technology is inherently neither good nor evil; it’s up to us to choose to use it in ways for which we can be thankful.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
