This evening after dinner (what my family called “supper” when I was growing up back in rural Georgia), I was reading the Sunday edition of The Advocate, which as you know by now is my newspaper of choice. And, by the way, I have considered contacting The Advocate and asking the editor or whoever makes such decisions if the paper would like to adopt the phrase “My Newspaper of Choice” as its slogan. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Ah, but I digress, so back to my reading The Advocate this evening.

I always begin with the front page, which provides a fairly in-depth coverage of national and international happenings; then I work my way section by section through the remainder of the newspaper, progressing from Parade to Magazine to Business to People to Comics, before I go back to People, where I work the Scrambled Word game and the crossword puzzle.

Anyway, as I was reading the Parade section this evening, I couldn’t help but notice an ad for a thing called a Samsung Instinct. The ad was placed by Sprint, and it’s a fairly large ad, taking up most of page 11; and although I normally don’t pay much if any attention to ads, this one caught my eye. Why? Heck, if I know, but it did. Maybe it was because, up until that moment, I had never even heard of a Samsung Instinct; but then again, maybe the ad caught my eye because it contained a picture of this really shiny object, and I have always been attracted to bright and shiny objects. Whatever the reason, I noticed that this particular object, more like a gadget really, had a screen, rather like a tiny TV screen, upon which was an image from CNN Live Mobile (It was of some guy I’ve seen on the news, although don’t ask me his name because I can’t remember at the moment); and my curiosity was piqued. I wondered, what on earth is that thing? So, figuring it was the only way I would learn the answer to this question, I then proceeded to read the ad’s text; and when I did, I was amazed to learn that the gadget was a telephone. Yes, that’s right a telephone, a cell phone to be specific, but not just any cell phone. This cell phone was like something straight from a sci-fi movie or maybe a technophobe’s worst nightmare. 

See, friends, this particular telephone, as the ad promises, allows its users to “take full advantage” of “Live TV, shoot-and-send video, voice-guided GPS Navigation, voice-activated search, NFL Mobile and NASCAR Spring Cup Mobile” (Parade, 2008, p. 11). 

“And so,” you say in that irritating nasally whine to which I have become so accustomed, “what is your point?”

My point is this: Just who the heck needs all that high-tech gadgetry? I thought a telephone was for, well, telephoning people. In other words, one person dials a number, and if the person at the number being called is so inclined, he or she answers the call, after which two people proceed to have a conversation, intelligent or otherwise. At least that’s the way it worked when I was coming of age in Fairburn, Georgia and also the way it continued to work until not too long ago when somebody, somewhere, with a lot of time on his or her hands and nothing better to do than tinker with perfection decided telephones should be entertainment centers, albeit teensy weensy pocket-size entertainment centers.

“So,” you now ask, “what’s wrong with that?”

What’s wrong with that is how we are now going to have people not just yakking away on their cell phones but also using those phones to watch their favorite soap opera or reality show, film and then transmit home videos, receive directions from some robotic voice, surf the World Wide Web, and enjoy football games and auto racing, all while zooming along at 85 miles-per-hour over this nation’s highways.

And if that’s not enough to give you nightmares, technophobe or not, I don’t know what is.

Sprint Advertisement. Parade Section. The Advocate. Baton Rouge, Louisiana. p. 11. August 10, 2008.