Put Down the Damn Cell Phone

There is a big push to build self-driving cars and other autonomous vehicles. This push is technology driven, but it is not the technology of the cars or the artificial intelligence or the sensors that make it work. No. What is driving this is the technology of hand-held electronic devices: Cell phones, I-pods, tablets, and the like. It is the inability of people to put these devices down when logic dictates that you should not be looking at them. Like for example, when you are driving, or walking across the street, or operating heavy equipment. Common sense would seem to indicate that these are potentially hazardous activities and perhaps it might be better to hold off on answering that text message instead of responding to it this very minute.

But people are stupid. I say this with some authority. Just read the paper every day. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if the stupid people just killed or maimed themselves, but how many innocent people have died because of the actions of the stupid? So, since we can’t get people to put down their devices, we have to come up with a whole new technology to accommodate them. Hence the push for autonomous self-driving vehicles. Perhaps Human psychology has not kept up with human technology. We haven’t figured out how to shape the proper behavior. Psychology gets applied to things like marketing. Maybe there should be a whole new branch devoted to putting the damn cell phone down (but where is the money in that?)

It seems like we are headed down a bad road. I think technology is great, I love my computer, my cell phone, my tablet. But I see younger and younger kids being given cell phones and tablets, or just plopped in front of the TV. Such devices are addictive to an adult, imagine how more addictive it can be when it is all you have known your entire life. Overexposure of kids to electronic devices has been linked to obesity, sleeplessness, behavioral problems, educational problems, etc. When I see a two year-old being handed a tablet to keep him entertained, that is tantamount to child abuse. Perhaps in such cases the child needs to be taken away and given to an autonomous self-driving parental device.

(My novel Star Liner, is now available as an e-book through Amazon, or the other usual online sources. For those who like to turn physical pages, the paperback will be out soon).

Star Liner

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