I recently met a man who doesn’t own a mobile phone. Tim is a musician and performer and claims to never have neither owned nor felt a need to own a mobile phone. He heaves up the same, ever familiar argument of “back in the day when people didn’t have…”
His argument? Mobile phones are essentially just tools that handicaps people. According to him, plans are perfectly capable of being made and social lives are completely capable of sorting themselves out without relying on technology.
This makes me wonder.
Tim still has (and uses) a laptop, an ipod, a car, a dishwasher…you get the drift. So I don’t see how exactly does this whole “no mobile” policy fits into his unashamedly ‘cyborg’ existence. People like him will forever confuse me.
It makes no sense to intentionally reject one form of new media over another and then believe that by doing so you’ve positioned yourself in a place of power. The way I see it, media should empower you – the moment it enslaves you, you’re a dead duck. But on the other hand if you just choose not to use it (when you can) and make your life more efficient. Well, then you’re just an idiot.
Selectively rejecting technology doesn’t really make you anything great. It doesn’t make you any less of a ‘cyborg’ and it certainly doesn’t make any sense.
Touche, Tim.
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