TREAD WITH RESPECT, dear reader, as you approach this Diary, for it is being written by a member of an elite 7 per cent in this nation. Yes, we are the select percentile of the people who do not own a mobile telephone. (For American readers: “cell phone”, for German readers: “Handy”.) We revel discreetly of course; we have no wish to appear superior in our exclusivity, and we keep in touch, by letter, for mutual support. Our meetings are well attended, in a range of anonymous and varied locations. The annual general meeting is, in fact, held in a disused phone-box in the Midlands, the better to accommodate delegates from all over the country.
The lively discussions at our regular meetings are conducted from room to room, utilising two empty tin cans and a taut length of string. And once a year we commemorate that historic occasion in the house in Boston in 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A Watson made their breakthrough and started the whole damn thing off. A member takes the role of Bell, while a second, as Watson, goes into another room. The member playing Bell will open the proceedings by spilling a jar of acidulated water and will then, in an urgent tone, repeat Bell’s immortal words into the apparatus: “Mr Watson, come here, I want you!” “Watson” will then rush into room, crying excitedly: “I heard you, I heard you! What happened to your trousers?” This pageant is always much enjoyed by the membership, and there is competition every year for the two roles, and to supply the jar of acidulated water.
But the organisation has a purpose much more serious than mere entertainment. For example, evening classes are offered in Morse code, semaphore signalling (flags supplied) and how to attach a message to the leg of a pigeon.
And we are particularly fortunate in having the services of Dr Theophilus Baud, professor of telecommunications psychology at the University of Rottenegg in Austria. At a recent meeting he lectured us on what he was pleased to call the Blue Blanket phenomenon among mobile-users (fans of the Mel Brooks movie, The Producers, will recognise the reference as being to the small square of soft blue material in which Gene Wilder took refuge when stressed).
Prof Baud expounded on how many mobile-users (MUs) can be observed carrying their phone in their hand as they walk along the street, and glancing down at it from time to time, as if for reassurance, for comfort. He identified this as a worrying indication of the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. If you’re inclined to be sceptical, just keep your eyes alert in the street, and you’ll see what I mean. (I’m reminded of a phrase in an early poem of Michael Longley’s, referring to his cigarette: “a necessary extension of my hand.”)
Another of Prof Baud’s topics was the important “play” role of the phone in the MU’s life, which is the adult equivalent of those coloured, jangly balls that are suspended above a baby’s pram. Field research carried out by his PhD students has established that for 83 per cent of the time that an MU is interacting with his/her phone, he/she is neither making a call nor receiving one, but merely fiddling with it (Prof Baud, who has a way with words, calls it Thumb Hockey).
I was able to contribute to the seminar by recounting how, during a recent train trip in Germany, I had observed a young man who, possessing two phones, was talking on one and at the same time playing with the other. Prof Baud agreed that this was an extreme, but not uncommon, case.
And take note, if you will, of a crowd of workers spilling out of an office building at 5.30pm. At least 70 per cent of them will, immediately on exiting, delve in their bag or pocket for their mobile and start phoning. Why is this? Why don’t they do their business inside? Exhibitionism is what Prof Baud diagnoses; not at the extreme end of the scale (that would probably be indecent exposure) but at the milder end. The good prof has coined a slogan for this, too: mobile phoning must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
Wikipedia informs me that Alexander Graham Bell considered his most famous invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study. I know that Wikipedia should not be regarded as the ne plus ultra of information, but on this occasion I’m inclined to take it on trust. And I’m quite certain that, if Bell were alive today, he would not be an MU; indeed, he could well be a much-respected member of our little 7 per cent society.