CELLPHONES

By Kelly Cunningham

Cellphones are the best example one can find that communication through technology is essentially false interaction; all are miniature reproductions of what would otherwise be a complete social interaction, as if communication was nothing but a series of disconnected messages, a system of inputs and responses formulaic and easily replicated.       

            Real interaction, complete interaction, is increasingly rare. Face–to-face conversation when both parties are occupying the same space in the world is the most basic and most complete option. All communication through a device (cellphone, iPad, webcam) is always lacking something and that something is always ignored, deemed irrelevant by advertising, apps, and new programs that claim to do it all. Phone calls lack facial expressions making it more difficult to identify moods, not being able to see the other person makes us aware of the distance between us. Texting misses more—immediate response, all non-verbal cues, tone, and—on occasion—context. Video calls or chats are perhaps the most deceptive. While they seem to solve the problems existing with the first two modes, they merely further disguise their myth—one can see the person they’re talking in ‘real’ time to but they still lack the ability to display physical affection. It tricks participants into believing they are in the same location, creating the illusion of proximity and, by default, the illusion of intimacy.

            The fact that smartphones literally make the claim that they can sufficiently replace—and even enhance—communication only prepare those who use them to accept these forms as true interaction, constituting it for them even before they can think about the alibi of a Nature that has created the circumstances under which parents are away from their children and friends can be at their disposal with the touch of a button. The communication here delivers a catalog of everything humans believe interaction consists of: a responding party, words, and—in the case of video calls or emojis—facial expressions and gestures.  But it is not so much these substitutes as it is the seemingly limitless options. There exist, for example, over 1,620 emojis for facial expressions, videochats that can include multiple people at a time, even devices that can transmit sound out of the phone into a car or room that an individual is occupying. I have no doubt the moving, holographic visual of the person on the other end of the cellphone will eventually be able to appear and virtually occupy the same space. By which means, all humans can expect to have this false social interaction without physically laying eyes on another human being, much less having to touch one. Only increasingly confronted with this universe of alternatives for the physical presence of others, humans cannot begin to understand the importance of compromise, or, perhaps more importantly, the necessity of being alone. They are turned into a type of isolated royalty who needs not schedule plans with others or learn to exist in solitude, despite the fact that in reality they are always alone. All they have to do is click send, tap a screen, or type out a message to receive the semblance of interaction in the form of printed words, the voice of a loved one through a speaker, or the glow of another’s face on an HD screen.

The most elementary act of interaction, a conversation across a table, implies an altogether different understanding of the world: with it we may have no significant feelings or ideas exchanged (though I would argue this is less likely in cellphone-based forms of communication) it matters little that these conversations may be fruitless: these exchanges are not those of words, but those of a mutual time commitment: a full commitment of time which allows for physical touch, the sharing of space, warmth, facial expressions, and undivided attention to one another. But this is now becoming a rare event: the cellphone is an object of interaction imitation meant to make phone addicts, not more connected humans.

The embourgeoisement of the cellphone is recognizable from its forms, all functional, but from its substance as well. The newest phones are made of different metals, conductors of electrical charge, and touch-sensitive screens. Emphasis on its ability to transcend time and distance seeks only to disguise the very thing it will always lack—closeness, intimacy, connection, touch. In texts the fake yellow faces attempt to add feeling and personality to an otherwise static and stoic line of words, spelled out in clear print, utterly devoid of the personality that accompanies handwritten messages. The touch screen feature of all new cellphone models is perhaps the most telling of the myth they perpetuate. It replaces the humans we once touched with a screen so that we might be tricked into believing in the myth of cellphones. Henceforth all communication will be remote, in substance and in distance; their very design introduces to us the false idea of interaction. Such devices suggest that by touching, tapping, and holding them close we can sustain relationships without ever having to lay a finger on anything emitting warmth, breath, or other sign of life.