From Delight to Dread: How Phones Became Modern Torture |
The worst form of torture for laboratory rats is unpredictable intermittent shocks. With phones in our pockets we are submitting to the worst form of torture every waking moment.
Ironically, fifty years ago when a telephone rang in a home, all denizens would joyously scurry towards the plastic encased device as if it were Santa Claus descending the chimney with a satchel full of gifts. Prior to the invention of caller-ID, while the telephone was ringing… you did not know who was calling. You had to pick up the phone in order to find out. Imagine.
That unique and ubiquitous “ding-aling-aling” chimed with human possibility, of delightful connection and ecstatic serendipity. It could be bringing good news from afar, a friend proposing a spontaneous adventure, or the promise of a lover calling to schedule a secret rendezvous. The sound itself had a Pavlovian charge that caused the recipient to salivate with the........