Is There an APP for That?

Is There An APP for That?

According to my daughter’s cell phone bill she spends, in a thirty day billing period, 24 hours on her cell phone. Talking!  Let me do the math for you.  Twenty-four hours is 3.3% of a 30 day month or .27397 percent of a year.  24 hours is a day spent just talking.  The Earth will rotate once completely on its axis, from west to east, there will be a sunrise and a sunset and that is the time she spends in conversation.  I know I am dwelling on the point, but studying her bill was a revelation to me. I get my Bell bill and there is a page or two.  My daughter gets her Rogers package and the documentation of her calls runs for several pages in a 6 point font.

I’m a Baby-Boomer and therefore very old school. I get on the phone when I have to and get of as soon as I can. It’s like shopping; when I need something I go to the store where I know the something is located.  I enter.  I select. I pay. I retreat.

I am a man and as such do not fully understand the intricacies of communication.  According to my wife much of my communication takes the form of an internal monologue.  I believe there is a speech bubble above my head and if people need to know something they can refer to my speech bubble. What’s so complicated?  Think of that ad on TV recently.  You know the one in which a couple is sitting on a dock overlooking a beautiful lake, all very romantic.  The woman is saying all the right things, like, “I enjoy your company. I love spending time with you.  I think we are really connecting.” Fade to the man who has tunnel vision, stares at the clouds and responds distractedly, but with some enthusiasm, “Doesn’t that cloud look like a motorcycle?”

My son is like me.  He too walks around with a speech bubble above his head and sometimes a light bulb. His communications to me are often short and to the point. He lives in Vancouver on the other side of the vast continent.  I know I should call him more. He probably knows that he should call me more, but we seem to live with the arrangement.  I love him dearly.

Several weeks, make that a month and a bit went by with neither one of us calling the other.  He, likely realizing the communications gap sent me an e-mail summarizing his life over the last little while with three salient and succinct points. I’m not sure if he used bullets or point form, but it looked something like this:

Hi Dad,

• Got a new kitten we called him Frodo
• L and I moved in together and its working out great
• We are going to Brazil tomorrow.

Love,

P

Of course I was pleased to get his e-mail, but a little miffed that it didn’t contain more information, like his current address. At present I have a “missing persons” out on my son whose address.  I have difficulty looking at milk cartons.

With my family growing up and migrating across the continent it is hard to track them.  Like some pet owners I am thinking of putting a locator chip under their skin, but realize that would probably be wrong and my communications skills are not up to speed either, so the egg doesn’t splat far from the tree, or whatever that expression is.

Let me briefly digress from my tangent in order to take the spotlight off of me.  I was getting really uncomfortable in that last paragraph.  

While walking along the water front in Toronto in late April C and I were enjoying the bright sunshine and I was working on my farmer’s tan.  We sat at one of those sidewalk restaurants and ordered some salad and watched the parade go by.  Some couples walked by arm in arm in animated, or quiet conversation depending on their mood, some in silence.  Several younger couples walked along the promenade  engaged in a conversation via cell phone.  The other part of the couple, not on the phone, seemed to be okay with this situation.  Again, I am “old school”, but what the hell is that all about?  I would be pissed if my partner was so disengaged with my company that she would spend our afternoon on a cell phone while walking with me.

Even worse, we watched as a group of four teenagers walking together, shoulder to shoulder, each engaged in animated conversation with a person that was not there.  Each had a flamboyantly coloured cell phone to their head. Who were they talking to and what was so damned important?  What am I missing?  Help me out!

It’s to the point that actual in the flesh human contact may be in jeopardy. Face to face contact seems to be on the decline.  Am I making a big deal out of nothing?

Along Yonge St, on the subway, or doing a drive by on Bloor Street, we kept noticing the same patterns.  The most bizarre was a young guy on a bike, in busy traffic, one hand on the handlebar in deep conversation on his cell phone.  I’d love to see his monthly bill, if he lives long enough to get one.  Just don’t get me going on drivers with cell phones.