Survival of the Unwired: An Experiment in
Techno-Darwinism?
Do you remember
when you had a tail? Perhaps not you, personally, but at some point back on
the family phylum, the primates that eventually turned into us
latte-swilling, technology-using urban professionals lost their tails;
probably because we didn’t need them to swing from trees anymore. One day,
the smartest of a group of tail-bearing primates realized that the really
interesting stuff was actually going on at ground level, not in the trees.
Perhaps it was the moment when we figured out that it was not per se
necessary to fend off enemies by climbing a tree, but that picking up a rock
and bashing the threatening party over the head accomplished the trick quite
nicely.
A few
generations of this ground-oriented living meant that eventually we didn’t
need our tails anymore, (and those primates that insisted on remaining in
the trees no longer had a good breeding pool) and the tails subsequently
disappeared in a poof of evolution. (Good news for the haute couture
fashion designers of the world…can you imagine having to design an Armani
suit with space for a tail?)
An interesting
tidbit from mostly European news reports caught my eye yesterday. Maybe you
saw it. A Hungarian scientist from the University of Szeged has released a
report that claims that cell phone usage may decline male fertility by as
much as 30 percent. Dr. Imre Fejes claims he has scientific proof that
radiation from cell phone handsets may interfere with spermatogenesis
(creation of new sperm cells). Couple this with the fact that most men have a
tendency to carry their cell phones in their trouser pockets or on their
belts (and therefore in closer proximity to their…um…fertility equipment),
and voilà…a recipe for a declining population of future wired urban
professionals.
The scientific
and medical communities have reacted with skepticism to this finding, but
let’s, for a moment, assume that there’s some truth to Dr. Fejes’ claim.
Let’s assume
that the compulsion to chat on one’s cell phone incessantly for needless
reasons is, in part, genetic. Understand I have nothing against people who
use cell phones out of necessity. I use a cell phone. Business today demands
we be very wired to accommodate the broadening marketplace.
What I’ve never
understood is the compulsion that some people have to share every moment of
wakefulness…every tiny detail that occurs during their day…with some other
party, via cell phone. You’ve heard these people. They’re in the grocery
store.
“Honey, I’m
buying tomatoes now. They’re $1.29 a pound. Should I get two or three?
Three? OK. Now I’m in the frozen food section. They sure have a lot of
frozen foods in this store. Did you know you could buy frozen papaya strips
here? What would you use frozen papaya strips for? Blender drinks? Oops…some
lady just left the freezer door ajar. I’d better close it. Now I’m going
back to my car. Last time I came to the supermarket, I parked it on the
right side of the store. This time, I figured I’d try the left. Oops…a cloud
just passed over the sun. Did a cloud pass over the sun where you are?”
What do these
people actually talk about when they meet their friends and family members
in person, since they’ve already described every tiny detail of their day in
a running cell phone commentary? Is the breakup rate of couples elevated
since the widespread use of cell phones? If it is, it’s because many couples
no longer have anything to talk about at the dinner table.
While checking
in for a flight several years ago, I had the dubious privilege (along with
several hundred other crabby travelers) of listening to the girl behind me
chatting on her cell phone, having what surely must be eligible for the
record books as the most inane conversation ever uttered. Did you know there
are people in this world who can talk for 40 minutes about a pair of shoes?
There are. Stay far, far away from them.
So what I’m
wondering is: if 22-hour-per-day cell phone usage leads to an increased risk
of male infertility (I don’t mean to pick on men only, but women tend to
carry their phones in their handbags, further away from the aforementioned
fertility equipment), and presuming the need to chat on the cell phone
round-the-clock, 365 days per year is a genetic trait, does that mean within
several generations, we will have bred excessive and fatuous cell phone
usage out of the human gene pool?
Does it mean
that three generations from now, our ancestors will be able to eat dinner
without hearing the person at the table behind them describing in detail the
limp daisies in the bud vase on the dinner table and the crumb arrangement
on the tablecloth to another party via cell phone (or some other sort of
futuristic communication unit)? Perhaps we’ll breed a new generation of
people that can actually shop, walk, eat and enjoy a drink in a bar on a
weekend without conducting a running commentary of the second-to-second
minutiae of their lives.
Tracey Schelmetic, who actually misses her tail, may
be reached for comment at
[email protected].
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