Muti-tasking cell phone obsession must be disconnected

O ver in Japan where not everyone has Internet access, cell
phones take on such desktop duties as e-mailing and even Web
browsing. The same is true in Europe, where the wireless network
has replaced traditional landlines. All this action has led to the
adoption of color screens for our cell phones. Yay.

Here in the States, we all have landlines with Internet access,
but that isn’t enough for us. We want to e-mail people and
access the Internet too. What is wrong with everyone? Why do we
need to e-mail people from our phones? Do we really need to
carry our entire lives and the whole world in the palm of our hand?
Aren’t we all connected enough? OK, maybe not ““ UCLA
does have the most atrocious cell phone coverage of any
geographical region I have ever traversed.

Let me clarify. I don’t think that using phones for more
than talking is necessarily dumb, but I have two points to
make. First of all, who wants to stare at a three-centimeter
screen and squint at tiny text or images? Second of all, I believe
that a convergence of too many functions is not desirable. I say
restrict our gadgets to one or two uses they can do
excellently.

We are starting to see $500 Sprint PCS phones with attached
cameras, Internet and e-mail capabilities. This added functionality
is useful for those times when you urgently need to send a picture
to someone and you’re just too far from a landline. My mind
might just be in the gutter, but I can only see one use for these
cameras ““ porn. And we all know this will lead to all that
junk mail in our e-mail boxes now being sent to our personal
phones. Great, now I’ll start getting “spam
images” on my phone of some 40-year-old pervert sitting naked
in a La-Z-boy from his apartment in a suburb of Phoenix,
Arizona.

While I do love wireless gaming, I have not been sold on the
games currently available on any of the phones. The screen size is
just too small, and the buttons on a phone are not conducive to
gameplay.

The larger Personal Data Assistant phones out there are really
where it’s at. Their bigger screen size, better processors
and Internet access make them viable portable e-mail and game
portals. Leave the tiny phones to talking, text messaging and the
occasional graphics.

By 2008, 97 percent of all phones will have color
screens. This is great, as long as battery technology can
improve and make up for the extra power requirements, or screen
technologies such as power-saving OLEDs (organic light emitting
diodes) can become more cost efficient.

But until then, let’s not overdo it with the
bizillion-function phones. If I want a laptop, I’ll buy a
laptop. Don’t pee in my swimming pool, people. I don’t
swim in your toilets.

E-mail Esposito at [email protected]