How We Love to Hate our Cellphones

Wired News posted a moderately amusing little anti-cellphone rant by Momus yesterday.  A sample:

I don't have a cell phone. In fact, I'm here today to tell you that they're the work of the devil. Switch yours off for five minutes and I'll explain why.

Interruptability

Phones have always been interrupting machines. Like a screaming baby demanding to be fed, a phone demands your attention as soon as it rings. It requires you to be interruptable. And a hell phone, unlike a house phone, tags along with you wherever you go, nagging.

Link: Wired News: Cell Phones? Hell Phones!.

You won't find much disagreement here, but then pretty much everyone agrees that cellphones are annoying.  It's so commonplace to bitch about cellphones that a commentary like this can now safely appear in Wired, of all places, without anyone batting an eye.  Just don't suggest people actually do something about it, like support a driver cellphone ban, or the techno-libertarians will be up in arms.  In fact, that's the one cellphone annoyance conspicuously absent from Momus's commentary -- the dangers of driving while on a cellphone -- obviously too sensitive a topic for Wired.

Update: Momus has set me straight in the comments.  I don't read Wired very regularly, so I haven't seen his previous columns, but I have newfound respect for him now that I've read (on his blog) that he regularly tries to "rip into a whole area of tech and tell the world it's rubbish."

Comments

[Momus]

I left out the dangers of driving while on a cellphone not because it's "too sensitive a topic for Wired" but because... I forgot! It simply didn't come to mind when I made my list of all the things that annoy me about the phones. But yes, good point, it should be banned.

[Kevin]

Thanks for the clarification and sorry to accuse you! :) I guess I got a bit carried away.