When I was purchasing my cell phone at 16 (so my mother could keep tabs on me, and no other reason, actually) I had the sales person approach me with the phrase "what do you want your cellphone to do for you?" I answered with "ring when someone's calling" and felt very victorious and witty. It didn't make any impact there, unfortunately because it was his job to provide me with enough information about all the newest things that cellphones could 'do' and why I 'needed' such and such new feature. I also apparently needed a pink phone rather than the classic black one I chose because it was "all the rage", although I suspect it had something to do with me being female. In any case, It took me longer to buy a plain and (nearly) featureless phone than it would have to get a hi-tech gadget which not only rings when called but also contains an mp3 player, access to the internet, and probably could be used as a stapler, letter opener, and emergency life support machine. Conclusion: progress is great, but this is silly.

You're right on the money, Anne. The salesman's job is to create a need and service it. A clerk simply services an existing need. No salesmanship there. Our system is designed to cultivate dissatisfaction and view products as the answer to our dissatisfactions. Resist. Buy what you need, don't waste resources and most of all, "Don't let the bastids grind ya down, luv."

Great article - i enjoyed it a lot.

Every time I'm in the unfortunate situation where I am forced to eavesdrop, whether I want to or not, on another's conversation over a cell phone, I'm almost always confounded with the mundane babble involved and wonder what is really involved here.

Is this some phenomenon of simply taking advantage of technological possibility or are there deeper psychological reasons why the mobile-phone has become a necessary accessory to our lives?

In my mind, it would seem that the cell phone phenomenon is the result of us not being able to find any interest in the world around us, alone and with ourselves, directly and without intermediaries.
The world is too mundane or our perception of it too shallow to hold our attentions.

We, therefore, need that other to fill in the boredom and to distract us from ourselves.
We feel fulfilled and engaged only when there is another there to verify it and we feel our identity only when there is another there to reflect it.

Are you familiar with the concept of 'horror vacui' as it relates to visual art? It basically occurs when artists feel the need, rather than the desire, to fill every inch of the canvas; i suspect that much cell phone discussion is an example of that. It is the inability to be still, and by oneself, mentally.

That leads me to believe that many people suffer from great amounts of emptiness and loneliness. I recall reading in The Brothers Karamozov how some peasant women would just start screaming and going crazy from stress and a meaningless life. Are we seeing the release of this stress via babble?

Since people are animals, is all that chatter a mere form of barking?

"horror vacui". I love the term. And yes, it probably is a form of existential barking, also a great phrase. Please see my most recent bark on cell phone anomie.