Back in May of 2004, I wrote about Cell Phone-itis and Other Technological Diseases.  Since then, several million more people, including most of my elderly friends and, no doubt, some tots barely able to say "MaMa" and "DaDa," have acquired cell phones.   My wife and I still don't have one.

People are incredulous when I admit to not owning a cell phone.  They look at me as if I had just said that we don't have indoor plumbing.  Those who know me are especially astounded because they're aware that I get and become addicted to every new technological gee-gaw that comes along – from home theater systems to digital cameras.  In fact, I'm the guy they sometimes come to for advice on what to buy and how to use it.  I'm not exactly a technophobe.

Nevertheless, I have my feet firmly dug in, resisting the urge to buy what everyone else seems to be finding almost indispensable.  Holy connectivity! Some young people I know feel that civilization as they know it would collapse if they did not have access to their cell phones 24 hours a day.  To be without the device would be – so they think – like being marooned on a desert island, deprived of all human contact.  If we asked a thousand people under thirty years old what they would want on a desert island with them, I'll bet that most would answer, "A cell phone."  That's a logical thought, but why do I believe that, if they were on a desert island with only a cell phone, most of these people would not call 911 but would perish there talking on their cell phones about nothing of consequence?

I've noticed something else, too, and I don't think it's my imagination.  (Warning:  Sexist remarks ahead!)  Women seem more prone to cell phone-itis than men are.  Most of the marathon nonstop jabberers are females.  When I have done an informal count of students who walk across a college campus talking on their phones (while ignoring their companions), female chatterers outnumber males about three or four to one.  To determine whether I had a gender bias, I asked my wife whether she thought this was true, and she agreed that it was.  "Women talk much more than men do," she said.

When I try to understand my own reluctance to get a cell phone, the first reason that comes to mind is the behavior of the people who have them (already discussed in Cell Phone-itis and Other Technological Diseases).  I wouldn't have to become as rude, loud, and obnoxious as they are, but I fear that I might.  Like anyone else, I can become oblivious to my surroundings when I'm on the phone, so I might become like the people I see everywhere nowadays, jabbering away unaware of the pests that they are making of themselves.

The second reason is that I haven't convinced myself of the necessity of having a cell phone.  I'll admit that, in the months since I last wrote on this subject, my wife and I have experienced a few situations in which we said that it would be handy to have a cell phone.  Somehow, though, we muddled through without one, and the trauma was not great enough to make us run to the nearest phone store to equip ourselves with a phone that not only serves in an emergency but also takes photographs, accesses the Internet, and plays little ditties that we can use to let other people know how cool we are.

Perhaps we've developed too many habits that make having a cell phone unnecessary – or at least a less imperative option.  We plan.  When shopping, we prepare a list and don't need to call each other from the store to find out what we're supposed to get after we get there.  On a trip, we map out our route before we leave, so we don't have to call ahead to a motel for directions on how to get there (while hurtling down a freeway at 65 mph).  We also prefer to deliver news in person, even though we may have to wait awhile to do so.  If my wife hears an interesting bit of information that she considers worth sharing with me, she doesn't feel compelled to call me on a cell phone and tell me at once.  She can wait until she gets home.  When we're out with friends, we like to give our attention to the people we are with, not to other friends who are somewhere else.  We have this old-fashioned idea that it's courteous to listen to present company, even when we find them boring.  Most of all, we have the habit of conducting private business in private, not by telephone in a restaurant, on a street corner, or in some other public place.

We try to be aware of our surroundings and have found that this awareness has distinct advantages, which range from appreciating and absorbing what we see to not running into parked cars because we aren't paying attention.  I fear that, if we had a cell phone (or two), we would become too distracted to appreciate our surroundings or to avoid accidents.  I've never been a great believer in "multitasking," for I've found that, when my mind tries to focus on two things at once, it doesn't focus on either of them very well.  That, I realize, could be a function of age, but I observe that even young people who talk on cell phones while attempting to do something else don't do the other very well.  They don't even walk straight, let along drive straight.  I once saw a man who was talking on a cell phone walk right into a glass door; he looked surprised (and somewhat offended) that it was there.

Even with a land-based phone, I find most phone conversations less satisfactory than a face-to-face talk.  Phones are marvelous tools for conducting cut-and-dried business or relaying factual information, but in a phone conversation, we lack such important elements of communication as facial expressions and body language.  Perhaps one of the reasons some people love to use the phone as much as they do is that it's easier to lie to or con the listener without exposing the deception.

I still don't understand why the cell phone phenomenon bothers me as much as it does.  Anytime I see someone blocking the aisle in the supermarket while talking on a phone, I want to ram that person with my shopping cart.  I want to stand beside people who are talking on phones in public with a clipboard in my hand, taking notes – if they want to carry on private phone conversations in public, they shouldn't expect the conversations to be private.  I want to snatch the phones out of their hands and hurl the phones against a wall.  I want to yell:  "Shut up, for God's sake!"

Clearly, I need therapy.  I should go to a psychiatrist and find out what traumatic event or subconscious anxiety has twisted my psyche to such an extent that seeing and hearing people talking on cell phones evokes the desire to grab the phone and cram it down the speaker's throat.  Perhaps, if the therapist is any good, I shall be cured, will buy a cell-phone myself, and can avoid relapsing into my old antisocial self by using it to contact my therapist every day, preferably in some public place where everyone can be entertained by my angst-ridden confessions.