PDA s And other Ramblings

Christiansen's Comments
Published in the
Hinds county Gazette
Raymond Mississippi
September 23 2010

Mankind has been through some extraordinary revolutions, what with the, automobile, TV, rockets, crushable beer cans and plastic shopping bags…..But, I am thinking the cell phone have to rank fairly high on the graph of life changing gadgets.




Actually they are not called cell phones anymore, they are PDAs, Personal Data Assistant….a title appropriate to it’s endless talents. With the aid of an appliances… about the size of a deck of cards you can access information from anywhere in the world….dictionaries, Bibles of numerous translations, games…..land records, death records, you can visit art museums, traffic can be monitored in real time. PDAs are equipped with cameras, still and video, GPS, stop watches and even a level…..it can do just about anything…except cook …Though, I would not be surprised , if the PDA could be programmed to remotely turn on your oven….



It has been my observation that in any group of people, say for instance in waiting rooms, in restaurants, etc at least half of the people will be on their PDA, talking, texting, or surfing the web ….the younger the group the higher the percentage.



But, what I think surprises me the most is the number of men using cell phones….Once upon a time I believed men did not enjoy talking on phones. My dad, of course, talked on the phone, but until he retired, seldom answered a ringing phone….….if he answered, you knew he was home alone. My John when the phone rang….on the first ring, would begin hollering, “Is somebody going to answer that phone?”



But John took to the cell phone right away…he went and got us each a phone. But for the longest he would not turn his phone on, unless he wanted to call someone….He said, he didn’t want to run his battery down.



I have noticed in the vehicles I meet, at least 2/3 of the drivers are on their phones…just as many men as women….young and old.

I have come to believe…men just didn’t like being tethered by a cord…while women did not mind being constrained by the wire…gave us an excuse to sit down a few minutes.





PDAs have changed how we communicate in such a short time…I get very little personal mail in my mail box at the road anymore…I could not even tell you, the last time I wrote a note, stamped and put it in the mail. Email…. that was the way to go.



But then,….this is what has come about in just the last few months….I am getting and sending less and less email ….But getting and sending more and more text messages. I use test messaging a lot…it is very convenient…it takes very little time. With the smart phones our world is getting bigger and bigger…we are free!…we can go where ever we want and still be in touch with scores of our friends. You can go for days and not speak to even your best friends…and still know what they are up to….by means of Text messaging and the likes of Twitter and Facebook.



Of course there is a pretty hefty cost for the convenience…The high price of the PDA is only the beginning of the cost….To use your PDA you pay by the minute or subscribe to a packages.



In my parents lifetime it was transportation that moved at mind blurring, head scratching speed …leaping from horse and buggy…. to rockets, taking men to the moon.



My lifetime it is communication and information that gushed ahead …When I was a little girl, we had no TV in rural Nebraska until I was 12, and not everybody had phones, and phones were not like they are now, you had to go through what we called “central” gave the number to an operator, who was sitting in front of a big apparatus equipped with plugs and switches…some how, with the aid of the plugs and switches she miraculously was able to patch us through to our intended party.



When I was a little girl… mother often spent the afternoons visiting friends, the elderly, or shut ins…..I spent many hours sitting on a chairs, my hands folded in my lap, and only speaking if spoke to…..It was not a bad experience…I enjoyed listening to the conversations.



So this is what I have been pondering of late,… is money the only cost we are pay for our…for our …..new convenient forms of communicating?

Love to all…. call if you need me

PS Have you noticed ….you don’t hear as much booming music coming from the car next to you at the traffic light…..it must not be possible to talk on the phone and listen to a relentless, pavement shaking…. Boom! Boom! Boom!