“Of phones and privacy”

Posted: 14 Aug 2010 08:10 PM PDT

Of phones and privacy

HAS the mobile-phone made life simpler, or more complex? On the plus side, the mobile phone makes it possible to make and receive calls and messages from a moving position and cuts people free from land lines. Smartphones like the iPhone and BlackBerry take the mobile communication scenario even further by making it possible to email, tweet, blog, update Facebook accounts, watch videos and surf the Internet. This means a person does not have to be near a desktop computer or lug around a laptop or netbook to do all of the above any more — one can do all of that wherever one happens to be, including while pushing a trolley down a supermarket aisle, riding in a lift, or while waiting for the traffic lights to change.

Yet, though the world may have become smaller, it has also become more fragmented. While these phones certainly allow for multi-tasking communication, they also allow for even greater intrusion into normal face-to-face communication. Instead of socialising in real time and real space with family and friends, a person's attention is split between his real life and his cyber life.

These days, it is quite impossible to sit at the breakfast/lunch/dinner/conference table without having conversations interrupted by a phone call, SMS, BBM, or email/Twitter/Facebook update. Even worse, the act of accepting such communication during meals and meetings, or placing the phone on the table, has become so commonplace that some don't even recognise it as a faux pas.

There is a need to set limits. Just because a person has become accessible all the time does not mean that that accessibility should be abused. For instance, a person still has a private life and private time, and that should be respected. Bosses and co-workers must resist disturbing a person outside of workhours; and if they must interrupt, it must be with apologies. The owner of the telephone must also respect himself and realise that just because there is a call, it does not mean that it must be answered—calls can be returned at a more convenient time. And if life and how we socialise have changed, then new rules need to be set.

But just as with the traditional computer, these micro-sized telephony computers should not be feared or rejected just because they have the ability to completely take over one's life. Like any tool, they can be used to set a person free by providing the opportunity to do things during the in-between times. But if a person uses them during the primetime — during a child's school concert, spouse's emotional reachout, one's rest hours or family gathering — then, the tool becomes a ball and chain, and one becomes a slave.

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Of phones and privacy

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