Mobile Phones: How Science Fiction Failed Us

March 15, 2010 - By Phineas Delgado

March 15, 2010 - We all know the story about how the cellular phone was inspired by the communicator in Star Trek. We even had ones that looked like communicators for a while, when the flip phone was the new craze. I wonder how many geeks out there had to sheepishly take their phone back to the store because when they were playing Captain Kirk with their cell phone, it slipped out of their hand and smashed into the sidewalk. Technology was finally letting us communicate instantly with anyone anywhere.

Star Trek® is a registered trademark of Paramount Pictures

What we didn’t see in Star Trek was the Romulan who was trying to call, or worse, text while driving his Warbird. I’ve seen the video… he drove right into a singularity… very messy. In all seriousness, I suppose we should have known people would talk while driving since car phones were popular in the late 80’s, but really… texting? I can barely keep myself out of accidents in this car-infested city while I AM paying attention. I’m all for laws banning the use of cell phones while driving, hands free devices or not. No call or text is that important. How does this really relate to science fiction?

The previous topic segues nicely into the next aspect of how Science Fiction didn’t prepare us for Mobile Phones: the inconvenience of being conveniently available whenever and wherever. Remember in Star Wars, when Luke was trying to get C-3PO to open the door to the trash compactor? Remember what would have happened if 3PO hadn’t have turned the damned thing off? He’d have been a pile of parts. Now, I’m not saying that having the ability to call or be called wherever you may be is a bad thing. I remember how much of a pain payphones were. However, I am also a fan of the Byrds; “For everything (turn, turn, turn)/There is a season (turn, turn, turn).” There is an off button for a reason, folks. It’s not just there to turn the phone back on when you run the batteries down.

Seriously, the next person I see texting while driving, or answering their phone in the ICU is getting kicked in the junk… or at the least getting a strongly worded finger-wagging.

Chris Koontz – A fledgling writer and IT Professional, Chris took his hobby and made it his career. He manages all of the technical needs for a small franchising company, including hardware and software support, LAN and WLAN networking and server administration. In his spare time, he games and writes, with hopes that his first book will be complete later this year. He’s been PC Gaming since Wolfenstein 3D and Apogee ruled the universe.