Forty Years of Cell Phone Calls

Pew marks the 40th anniversary of the first cell phone call with some data on phones' proliferation and people's habits with them. Now 87% of adults in America own a cell phone, up from 75% about five years ago.

The good thing about all these phones is that people are learning to be a lot less annoying with them. I think there are some generally accepted norms about not talking in line, turning off your ringer in a movie theatre, and that kind of thing that didn't exist when the technology began to take off. There are still people talking in lines and now there are custom ringtones, of course, but I don't think the amount of annoying behavior has scaled with the popularity of mobile phones.

Another annoying part of the cell phone lifestyle is getting calls. That may seem counterintuitive, but getting a call in your pocket wherever you are, whatever you're doing is obtrusive. Most people think the alternative of being harder to contact is worse, but being interrupted to drop whatever to talk at any time is burdensome.

Enter text messages, which also allow immediate, anywhere connection, albeit in a much less disruptive way. Pew found in 2011 that among cell phone users who text, 31% prefer to be reached by text and 14% said that it depends on the situation. Also counterintuitive, but I think the rise of text messaging might be attributed in part to people's desire to be left alone.

So, 40 years on, the turn toward text communication, along with Internet connectivity for the web, Facebook, Twitter, and email, shows how far the cell phone has moved from something for voice calls toward a sort of all-purpose connection device.

Conspiracies in the Time of Dial-Up

A piece at Media Matters called “The Return of The Clinton Crazies” reminded me that it used to be a lot harder to learn about the Clintons’ treachery and villainy. 

Eric Boehlert draws a connection between the suspicion and derision surrounding Hillary Clinton’s recent hospitalization and the frothing conspiracy theorizing of the 1990’s:

“The unhinged concussion response seemed to mark the unofficial return of the Clinton Crazies, that marauding mindset among conservatives who spent the 90's launching endless attacks against the Clintons; vicious and wildly personal attacks that went far beyond partisan debate. (i.e. Accusations of killings and mass murder.)”

The thing is, people who wanted to hear Clinton murder accusations in the 1990’s had to put some effort (and money) into it. “The Clinton Chronicles,” for example, was a conspiracy-theory-laden “documentary” videotape available by mail order.

Mail order!

There was, of course, Rush Limbaugh in the 1990’s, but in general this kind of politically motivated nonsense had to be sought out, or you’d need to put yourself in the right (wrong ) crowd. Even with the beginnings of the web at home in the 90’s you’d need to seek out a Clinton site at Geocities or sign into a chatroom, whereas today you might unintentionally read comments on Facebook or Twitter about Secretary Clinton faking a head injury to avoid congressional testimony. 

The modern media landscape thus makes it a lot easier to spread misinformation about a birth certificate or taxes or death panels or whatever. And just wait until Clinton 2016.