Cell phones have never been just phones. They’ve always been communicators, but they’ve also had the ability to be deal-makers, marriage-savers, calculators, address books, weapons (Someone somewhere had to use one of those brick phones in a bar-room fight, don’t you think?) etc.
Two recent reports suggest that the cell phone is evolving beyond those traditional functions and affecting people in wider, weirder ways.
The cell phone is now a mating tool and smoking-prevention aid.
As with many other social wonders, it starts in Europe.
University of Liverpool researchers have discovered that men have very different relationships with their pocket phones than women. “As the researchers see it, the men are using their mobile phones as peacocks use their immobilizing feathers and bullfrogs use their immoderate croaks: To advertise to females their worth, status and desirability,” according to an article in the New York Times.
It seems the phone has replaced the Porsche. And since phones are a lot cheaper than sports cars, it can’t be too long before the cell phone is advertised as a pick-up tool. (Time to start adding a couple zeros to the price of a nice handset, don’t you think?)
A different but albeit equally interesting story comes to us from London, where researchers are pondering the relationship between teen smoking and cell-phone use.
Cell-phone sales to teens in the United Kingdom are up and teen smoking is down. A theory in the British Medical Journal connects the two, although the authors point out there is no proof that cell-phone use is stopping teens from smoking. However, researchers contend that using a cell phone may bring teens the same benefits they feel they get from smoking-bonding with their peers, trying to appear more like an adult and fulfilling their desire to rebel.
The only problem is teens don’t have the financial resources to keep up both their smoking habits and their wireless talking habits, according to the theory, so they often choose cell phones over cancer sticks.
Worried little Billy is going to get a rat tatooed across his chest? Get him a cell phone instead. A pricey one.
Ah, just in time for the holiday push.
