Reach Out And Annoy Someone.

• Author: ROWE, JONATHAN
• Position: Cell phone usage

When public space turns private, were all stuck listening to the noise

IN THE LATTER 1990S, IN THE MIDST OF the high tech boom, I spent a lot of time in a coffee shop in the theater district in San Francisco. It was near Union Square, the tourist and I observed a scene play out there time and time again. Mom is nursing her mocha. The kids are picking at their muffins, feet dangling from their chairs. And there's Dad, pulled back slightly from the table, talking into his cell phone.

I would watch the kids' faces, vacant and a little forlorn, and wonder what happens to kids whose parents aren't there even when they are. How can we expect kids to pay attention if we are too busy to pay attention to them? Peter Breggin, the psychiatrist, says much "attention deficit disorder" is really "dad deficit disorder." Maybe he's right.

As I sat there, I would think, too, about the disconnect between the way we talk about the economy in the u.s. and the way we actually experience it. The media were enthusing daily about the nation's record "expansion," and here were these kids staring off into space. It was supposed to be a "communications revolution," and yet here, in the technological epicenter, the members of this family were avoiding one another's eyes.

With technology in particular, we can't seem to acknowledge the actual content of our economic experience; and we discuss the implications only within a narrow bandwidth of human concern. Is there a health risk? Might the thing cause cancer? That's about it with cell phones, computers, genetic engineering, and a host of other new developments. As a result, we must await the verdict of the doctors to find out whether we are permitted to have qualms or reservations. Jacob Needleman, the contemporary philosopher, says that we Americans are "metaphysically repressed," and the inability to discuss the implications of technology--except in bodily or stock market terms--is a case in point.

I don't discount the significance of cancer. But there is something missing from a discussion that can't get beyond the most literal and utilitarian concerns. Actually, some of the problems with cell phones aren't at all squishy or abstract. If you've been clipped by a car tooling around the corner while the driver sits gabbing, cell phone in hand, then you are aware of this. The big problem, of course, is the noise. For sheer intrusiveness, cell phones rank with mega-amp car stereoes and political commercials, and they are harder to escape.

We all know the drill. First the endearing beep, which is like an alarm clock going off at 5:30 a.m. Then people shout into the things, as though they are talking...