Cell Phones and Tethering Through Life - Part 1
Ten days ago, as I noted in my last blog, I returned from the APA convention I attended in Boston. (In the blogosphere game, life is measured in blogs, not hours, minutes or days -- at least for me, now that I've stopped regular university teaching and consult rather than have a job which structures my hours, days, and weeks. You know: Tuesday and Thursday, 4:20-6PM, Psy. 418A - Personality Theory; Wednesdays, 6:10-10:00, Psy. 402, Media Psychology seminar, etc.)
Communication technology changes. Life changes. At conventions one gives papers, attends sessions, meets old friends, old students and colleagues, partakes of a round robin of dinners, lunches, breakfasts, all to meet, greet, touch bases, put names to faces and faces to names. Until about 10-odd years ago, before everyone who cared to be modern had a cell phone, people left hotel numbers or a schedule of places events and times where they were going to be with the contact service offered by APA. Things worked pretty well although occasionally they messed up and you would miss people and have to frantically try to reconnect and reschedule.
This time, at this convention, I messed up because I'm a technology-come-lately. Hell, I didn't even get a color TV until 1978. I was used to life in black and white and tones of gray. It helped me separate what was TV reality from my personal reality (think 50's TV sitcom folks like those on TVLAND or in the movie Pleasantville. It worked. Really.).
Actually, as far as technology goes, I'm at best a dabbler (although I was, it must be noted, the first on my block to buy a laser printer back in the middle 80's). I get what I feel I need and not a device more. I'm not a Luddite, not technophobic, just not techno-fashionable. I just got a lap top six months ago. I don't have a PDA of any sort. Or GPS. I don't have an iPod (how much music do I really need to listen to when I'm away from home or office? My car audio system is terrific and I have lots of tapes and CDs). I don't have any form of Blackberry-type addictive, life ordering, log-on-to-the-universe-wherever-you-are, life-consuming device for people to get in touch with me if I'm away from a land phone. Emails can wait. So can the net. -- Please don't shoot me. Hear me out.
But, what's important here is that I didn't have a cell phone. Didn't think I really needed one. Therein lies the tale:
I had a meeting at the convention regarding a nearly-sewed-up consulting job to help develop a new university media psychology program. I was to meet with my future boss (let's call her Billie Dawn) with whom I had spoken several times. She was also attending the convention, getting ideas and scanning potential faculty for other programs in development at the university. We set up the early breakfast at Au Bon Pain, a popular bread and coffee and... chain in the Boston area. But I went to the wrong one (lesson: be wary of competing franchise workers bearing (mis)information) and waited 20 minutes.
Billie and I had never met and she and I had forgotten to ask for genetic markers. Smart step 1. Like a serial voyeur, I kept staring at single women's faces, watching their eyes as they came in to see whether or not they looked around like they were searching for someone, expecting someone (me?), or looked like they were just alone and seeking aloneness. Stupid game. Necessary game. Some false positives that were embarrassing ("why do you keep staring at me?") Some promising ("Do I know you? My name is June, what's yours?").
My bad? Billie's bad? I didn't know. But I didn't have her cell phone number with me. Smart step 2. And she didn't have mine -- because I don't have one! It turned out we both waited and then moved on. I called her hotel later that day and left message and explained about ‘no cell phone.' She never returned it. Nor the second. Merde! I was sure I blew it. This was to be productive fun and now she's not calling back. Then she called my hotel room, catching me thinking depressing thoughts. Never got my messages, she said, slightly suspicious in a "who is this guy!" kind of way. I apparently called the wrong one of the three numbers she had given me. Smart step 3. Was I out? Not sure.
Let's take if from the top: We set up another tête-à-tête -this time at an Au Bon Pain certain. Billie liked the eggs there.
The first thing Billie said as she sat down with her scrambled eggs, at the small, cold steel table, just as I approached was "You're a media psychologist; how can you not have a cell phone!" "Ouch! I thought." I smiled, sat down, took a bite of my 'everything" bagel, looked her straight in the eye and silently mused, "Okay, what the #$%& do I say to her that will prevent this media psychology consult gig from going South?" Then I began my media appliance rant, trying to run from scrimmage for at least a first down.
Tune in to Part 2. To Tether or not to Tether, that is the question!
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Ten days ago, as I noted in my last blog, I returned from the APA convention I attended in Boston. (In the blogosphere game, life is measured in blogs, not hours, minutes or days -- at least for me, now that I've stopped regular university teaching and consult rather than have a job which structures my hours, days, and weeks. You know: Tuesday and Thursday, 4:20-6PM, Psy. 418A - Personality Theory; Wednesdays, 6:10-10:00, Psy. 402, Media Psychology seminar, etc.)
