A cartoonist in the 1920s predicted what would happen if we invented pocket telephones.
You are saying to yourself, “But he couldn’t imagine people inventing an off switch?”, to which I reply “Maybe he’s also predicting people’s inability or unwillingness to learn how to use the off switch,” which makes this a double prophecy. I may have to start worshipping W.K. Haselden, the creator of the cartoon.
Why does the main character make me think of Adolph Hitler?
Because the main character looks like Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp character, who was the chief populariser of that tiny moustache that Hitler adopted.
Real “hard sci fi” right here.
It would be all the more prescient if he’d had the characters checking in on their social media accounts every 3 minutes.
It’s amazing how he could imagine mobiles but not women having one.
Here’s his Wikipedia entry.
He pioneered the use of the “strip” format with multiple panels, at least in Britain.
PZ
This is remotely related. I’ve just listened to the SGU #656 which features an interview with Brian Dunning. The skeptics are evidently sympathetic to Dunning and it does seem to me that he was treated unfairly. What do you think?
jack16
I’m still astonished by how fast people went from happily leaving their phone behind (land line) to being unable to imagine being without their phone and incapable of not answering the thing every 5 minutes, even though most calls are innocuous and could easily wait.
Actually, I doubt there’s any prophecy needed for that, as not learning how to use stuff seems to be human nature. Most of my experience in the computer industry has been writing and publishing user documentation and help…volumes of it. Except for the extremely geeky, people don’t use it. They certainly don’t read it. Even people who love to read are loathe to read user manuals.
In his book, The Nuremberg Funnel, John M. Carroll tells a story about working on Lisa Guide, a project he worked for Apple to develop onscreen help for the Lisa. To user test, they set up a Lisa with the manuals next to it…there were a lot. One of the test subjects, a technology person, told them they would be there a while because he would need to read all the manuals before turning on the Lisa. The team said fine. He picked up the first manual and started reading. After about 10 minutes he put down the book and turned on the computer. I’m surprised he went that long. Even a well written user manual is boring reading.
By the way, there’s more than one way to skin this phone ringing cat. I can think of fives things you can do on an iPhone: turn off the phone, put the phone in silent mode (switch on the side), turn the ringer volume down, put the phone in airplane mode (so you don’t get calls), don’t use a ring tone (vibration, flash). So, lots of affordances to not have ringing phones everywhere.
Of course, people have to remember to do these things, which is probably more the problem than knowing what to do. Ever sat in a theater before the movie starts watching the dancing M&M’s and coke cups pleading with you to turn off your phone only to have your phone ring five minutes into the film? Me either.
#8 Caine
Me too! Never gave up the land line. Also I never answer the phone. You have to leave a message. When I hear and recognize you I pick up. Roughly eighty percent of the calls are solicitations.
jack16
I was in an exam recently and someone’s mobile phone rang. The examiner immediately told them to switch it off, to which he replied “I don’t know how to do that!”. Someone had to help him out.
“learn how to use the off switch”
Or even better – learn, like me, to leave the thing at home. Few people here (including PZ) seem to realize that there is no law forcing you to carry it with you 24/7.
mnb0:
Word. I don’t have one at the moment, but when I had a cell, I tossed it in a drawer, and left it there. I never once took that damn thing out of the house. For the life of me, I don’t know why people act like their world will fall apart if they aren’t attached to their phone at all times.
#12
what carrying the cell-phone around all the time and checking it indicates to me is that we would rather be talking with our friends first and everything else second if doing any of the other stuff we “have to do” at all.
is it a reaction to being in the faceless crowd of humanity?
uncle frogy
You may want to hold off on the “worshipping” part PZ; he was pretty conservative, and opposed to “advances made by women, their careers, their voting rights and their increasing independence from the corset, both the physical and the metaphorical one of male domination.”
Source: http://www.original-political-cartoon.com/cartoon-history/w-k-haselden-1872-1953-memoir/
Another example of his cartoons: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/50/7e/15/507e1539e2db853a1657c2a935634f36–suffragette-universal-suffrage.jpg
@8 &10 .Over here in good old GB ,home broadband is mainly pumped in through the telephone line .
I don’t use my cell “phone” (they are actually computers these days) for much other than checking the time (I guess it’s a pricey techno pocketwatch!) and finding out when the next bus arrives.
But I’ve never wondered why people use their phones, or treat them as important. There is no mystery to me: they have friends to talk to, internet to use for info and entertainment, and games to play.
Oh, and it’s a camera, I like taking pictures! So much so that I try to take pictures in my dreams. Alas.
Reminds me, just a few days ago, I got my first ever text from my grandma.
re Robro@9:
hence the rise of the ubiquitous acronym answering most peoples “questions”: RTFM (Read The __ Manual)
Dudes. It’s not about the phone. It’s about carrying around what is, effectively, a supercomputer in your pocket. It’s useful. Hard to believe I need to say that really. :)
With GPS, high-resolution cameras and a decent microphone. All software-controlled, all online.
(PS It was effectively a supercomputer maybe 20 years ago. Now, it’s a smart terminal)
I like my mobile phone. It connects me to people who want to pay for my problem solving skills. And a few friends, too.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I always keep my mobile phone within easy reach just in case something happens. Like, I take it to the shower with me, just in case I fall and need help. That sort of thing. It’s quite handy for maintaining my independence.