Smit is Deputy Sports Editor.
20 June 2003
Johannesburg — ARE we about to become a nation of recluses?
Between television, computers, cellphones, faxes and the like, it would be quite easy to simply sit at home and conduct one's life electronically.
Already, the dreaded SMS seems to be taking the place of voice calls, with people hardly ever hearing personally from each other.
The amount of entertainment on television is simply mindboggling and you have to wonder how any of us are ever able to leave our TV room couches.
It's becoming a real issue, as I see it. Is there going to come a time when we can share an electronic meal together? Open a chat room on the internet, and a menu tells you, right, we are having this as a starter, this is the main course. Over that electronic dinner we have our electronic conversations and after that we all go to bed, not knowing whether any of our dinner guests had bad breath, or spinach sticking to their teeth.
For me the prospect is too terrible to contemplate. Already I see it around me. Suddenly, out of the blue, the cellphone will start beeping and there is a message from a close friend who obviously thought it was more convenient to SMS than to talk personally or perish the thought! actually visit.
What is even worse is a beeping and then an SMS saying "Please call me" from someone who doesn't have enough money to keep the cellphone primed and doesn't want to use it.
I have started my own little protest movement about this. I refuse to answer an SMS with an SMS. I always go through what today seems to be an unacceptably laborious process of actually dialling a number and speaking, voice to voice.
Sometimes I will even stretch credibility to the absolute limit by getting into my car and actually going to visit.
When you tell people you visited so-and-so, they look at you in disbelief as if to say: What did you do that for when you have e-mail, and cells, and faxes?
I don't know. Is this world going to an electronic hell in a handbasket? Are we about to become a nation of sofa bums, talking to our television sets and nobody else?
What of the kids growing up into this new world. Are they going to lose the power of personal communication? Will they know the meaning of "body language" and "facial expression"? Will school eventually disintegrate into all-electronic classrooms as teachers go on strike?
The worst to contemplate is the idea of going into hospital for an important procedure and being nursed and perish the thought operated on by robots. (Although, given the standard of nursing care in some institutions, robots might be a warm and comforting alternative.)
Then there is the scourge of 12-month seasons in all the major sports. Cricket goes on all year, rugby seems to, and if soccer had its way, it would go on for 16 months a year.
It is a matter of no small wonder that all the health gyms still seem to be so full all the time. Who are those people who actually get into their cars and travel to a highly congested social environment to take their clothes off and lose copious amounts of sweat? Is that why they work out? So that they will have the energy to get into their cars and travel the two blocks or so to the gym?
Are there special exercises in their routines to strengthen the thumb muscles for better performance in sending those SMSs? Are there internet classes for "speed SMS-ing" for that matter how to increase your thumb speed to 100 characters per oneminute call.
I can understand why so many people do SMS. It's cheaper than making a voice call. But the implications of never hearing each other, never knowing if the other party has flu, or a cold or the like, are frightening.
Maybe it's time to legislate those cellphone companies into permitting only five SMSs a month to anyone. And making the cost of voice calls as cheap.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2003 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
