Here is another installment of an article I wrote for USC's Daily Trojan. It didn't make it into the paper but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be read by people. Enjoy.
Living in the Past
(circa fall semester 2006)
It seems as if capitalist companies will always have some form of control over our lives, from the computers we use, to the cars we ride in, to the cell phones that connect us. Technology just continues to get better and better, as our reliance on it also seems to increase as well. What happens though when these products let us down and we become at the mercy of the companies that bestow them upon us as we remain helpless to abide to the terms under their contracts and warranties?
The effect that derives from this tyranny is misery and drudgery, for in the past month or so I have been forced to live in the past. And no, I didn’t build a car that could travel back in time like from “Back to the Future” or bend the space time continuum like Hiro Nakamura from the new hit show “Heroes” on NBC, but my cell phone screen did short out on me.
Having a cell phone without being able to see what I was dialing or who was calling me was like something out of the dark ages or life during medieval times. Their lack of enlightenment and electricity was the equivalent to my inability to see the numbers I was dialing, the calls I would receive, and the lack of saved numbers that used to be at my disposal.
But it didn’t hit me just how much I had traveled back in time until I had started to get used to the limitations that now entrenched my phone, as I would soon find out.
How many of us can remember the good ole’ days when saying “Hello is so-and-so home?” and asking, “who is this?” were used on a regular basis? Such phrases are outdated as we wouldn’t catch ourselves twice using them today, especially in this modern day age of cell phones and after the advent of caller ID in the mid 1990’s.
Another retro practice I saw myself executing was the need to write phone numbers on hand, rather than being able to punch them into the address book of my once beautifully lit cell phone screen. Who still carries phone books with them these days? Certainly not myself, although maybe I should have since most people’s numbers I had acquired over the past years were never memorized but were instead stored into a database I felt I could rely on.
I was naïve to rely on technology so much.
One other difficulty that I was forced to grow accustomed to was the uncertainty surrounding my mobile phone to be able to function as a mobile. Let me explain this. Because I could no longer see my screen I was never sure whether my cell phone was charged or not, as I would constantly need to connect the charger to an outlet.
There never was a guarantee that my cell phone would be charging, for sometimes cell phone chargers break down on us as well and need to be fidgeted with. This inconvenience left my mobile phone immobile, as it constantly needed to be plugged into the wall as it left me feeling like having an ordinary house phone of which I was accustomed to having in the past.
When it comes to cell phone companies these days, it’s hard to get out of a quick fix, especially when the terms and circumstances of the agreement you made over a year ago are stacked against your favor. I was unable to change my living conditions and held to remain in the past because I was stubborn enough to wait to be eligible for an upgrade with my cell phone provider, Cingular Wireless.
Cingular Wireless is an excellent cell phone provider; I could hardly hold them in contempt for my blasting into the past. My real scorn though is and will forever remain with Motorola. I didn’t have the popular Razr that is so often seen pressed to people’s ears on campus, but I did have a similar prone-to-breaking-down equivalent.
I strongly advise against purchasing a Motorola cell phone to anyone in the future; their cell phone products have been known to fail on people. Common breakdowns include loss of screen image, earpiece malfunction, and faulty buttons that quite often press themselves.
At one point in time three out of the four people who live in my apartment (including myself) had a malfunctioning cell phone; they were all Motorola.
I have recently come out of my dark age and have again acquired the means to telecommunicate with others. I now have a Sony Erickson and have decided to permanently say goodbye to Motorola.
Their assortment of different colored phones and sleek looking products are not enough to keep me as a customer; having a phone that works is far more important than having one that is perceived as being cool.
~Anthans
