The most entertaining piece of being a part of the wireless industry has got to be watching how the evolving technology is absorbed into our society and culture.
Every time you turn around, people are being confronted with deciding what is and is not appropriate about how and why we use our wireless tools.
One story finds parents concerned about teens’ interrupted sleep patterns due to late night cell-phone conversations and text-messaging sessions. How far we have come from a flashlight and comic book hidden under the covers!
The camera phone provides its own volume of questions related to privacy, decency and humanity. In its short existence, it has been used in dastardly ways to victimize children, and on the flip side, by quick-thinking good Samaritans to catch criminals.
You can engage in all types of vices with the help of your cell phone-from playing games to gambling to watching porn. We have all heard the countless stories of cheating spouses who have learned the hard way that it may not be the best form of communication to conduct extramarital activities.
How about that now-divorcing Romanian couple, who complained to each other via cell phone … he about how much work he had to do, and she about how ill she was … who mid-conversation ran into each other on the beach. It’s a small world.
With news such as Cingular’s messaging partnership with AOL, the world shrinks even further. AOL users can have their instant messages forwarded to their Cingular handsets and read and respond on the phones.
Instant messaging has been called “the office water cooler” of the modern day, often with participants showing few scruples about the content of their chats.
A study on workplace use of IM released last week by Blue Coat Systems showed not only that 40 percent of respondents admitted to using abusive language via office IM, 33 percent admitted to making sexual advances and 60 percent (incorrectly) believed that their IM activities were not traceable.
My four-year-old daughter brought snacks to school last week-cookies she and I baked. Leaving for school, Allison said “Mommy, I didn’t really bake the cookies because little girls can’t touch the oven.”
“Yes,” I told her. “You can touch the oven when you are big enough to know how to use it properly.”
