afraid of the dark?
I was running a counselling training group for Youthline when the lights went out. My co-facilitator was part way through saying "is anyone afraid of"(with one person saying me) the dark. She had her cell phone out and had altered the backlighting faster than the sentence could be completed. Within 2 mins I also had a txt from my home alone teenage daughter saying the lights were out followed by a tearful phone call. The effect of too many horror movies were quickly relieved in being able to say that the lights were out where we were too. No personalized axe murderers, stalkers just for her.
Having learned very quickly from my student, I could advice re the use of the mobile as a torch and she could then find candles.
Being an aging hippy I had missed the learning of how to use cell phones at a concert..." "dangerous little devices these cell phones" Bono, U2
Here's an ANT informed rather gorgeous study by Chris Chesher of U2 creating the milky way using cell phones. The ubiquitous cell phone can:
1. make and receive ph calls (21stC daughter thinks it hilarious that anyone would ever have stayed home all night waiting for a boyfriend to ring)
2. send and receive txts,
3. leave and retrieve messages,
4. a means to check weather,
5. play music,
6. play games,
7. take, send, and or store store photos, videos,
8. a reminder of appointments,
9. my alarm when travelling
10. CSI forensic location tracking device
11. something for the self conscious to do with their hands now that smoking is frowned on,
12. a means of establishing social cred,
13. a means of political activism,
14. creating the milky way
15. and a torch.....
Not surprizing then that teenage daughter couldn't work out how to function without her cell this weekend past- no money on the prepay. I naively suggested the cute invention of landlines, but no, speaking to anyone was to be avoided.
Or of using a computer to send an SMS, no- they wont know whose txting (say what? I know you can add that in the message)
There's an attachment here that I could barely figure (if the hard drive hadnt died on my laptop recently, i dont think i could have empathized at all).