0 isn't all that special after all

Let's start with the tech situation. It's so grim that when you listen to podcasts, CNBC, the Today show, or Oprah, or when you read any of the blogs, all you hear about are phones and how neat they are.

The latest buzz (and I've taken part in this blather) is that the phone is the next hot new computing platform. Yeah, baby! So is it? Or is that just wishful thinking?

Now don't get me wrong. These new smartphones are handy. They have five useful functions:

1. They are phones. You can call someone on these things.

2. They are GPS devices. You can find out where you are on one of them.

3. They are e mail readers. You can read your e mail and try to answer it on one.

4. They are flashlights. The screen can be used to find your way around in the dark seriously.

5. They are conversation pieces. You can download idiotic and seemingly useless apps to show people.

Yeah, it's obvious that this is the next computing platform. iphone 5s refurbished I can't live without one; I may as well throw away my laptop. This little phone is all the computer I'll ever need.

I admit, someday I can see a handheld device actually substituting for a real computer. Drop it into a cradle that hooks to a real keyboard and screen and the phone acts just like a desktop computer, with enough storage and power to run real office productivity programs. It's bound to happen. But today's devices are just expensive gimmicks for bored technophiles with no other outlet for their tech lust.

The problem is, these devices are also part of the prisoner mentality that has crept into society.

The cell phone is a hopeless conversation point; it's been the center of attention for too long. Why? I pointed out over 10 years ago how silly it was for a table of people to all pull out their mobile phones to compare them and seriously discuss them. This stupidity continues to this day   only it has gotten worse.

In the 1950s (when men were men), the same group wouldn't be around a dinner table sipping Chardonnay and showing off their effete phones. They'd be outside at a drive in eating beef and showing off the motors in their cars. They be comparing carburetors rather than counting iPhone apps.

Times have indeed changed. Today nobody even knows what a carburetor is, let alone how a motor works. Instead they're pinching photos on their iPhones and thinking to themselves, "Wow, neat o!"iphone 5s refurbished  It's out and out pathetic when you stop to think about it.

The attraction towards the diminutive started in the late 1990s and has baffled me. You see it everywhere, and it reminds me of what happens to prisoners with long sentences, people who may be in prison forever. Their handwriting begins to shrink into very small lettering. Instead of what might have been a bold and showy signature, they scrawl itsy bitsy characters. This is a form of closing down, and I think the attraction to the phone over the computer and the constant chattering about phones reflects a similar trend.

The movement really took hold with the development of the laptop computer as a desktop replacement. Who the heck wants to use a laptop as though it were a desktop machine? Yet people are hunched over these things in every office across America. Desktops are cheaper and bigger and more powerful, with bigger screens and better keyboard. But, noooo, people want a laptop instead. The excuse that laptops are better because they can be brought home is lame utter nonsense.

In the modern office, a few desperate souls do indeed hook their laptops to big screens and real keyboards. Most folks do not! They type on the laptop itself and use the dinky screen as the display. I've been personally baffled by this until the iPhone came along. Then I saw the underlying trend.

People are closing down, cocooning, folding their tent, turning inwards. They are acting like prisoners. The phone represents the prisoner's "shiv," the little carved knife that he uses for protection.iphone 5s refurbished  The only reason people are obnoxious on their cell phones and make such public scenes while talking on them is because they need to show the other prisoners that they have friends "on the outside." The annoying phone ring turned up too loud shows the other prisoners that they have a visitor. The collection of useless apps represent smokes. Earbuds induce solitary confinement. I could go on.

So all I'm seeing is prison behavior everywhere I look. Now I know why Palm named the new phone the Pre (pronounced pray). People can only pray about escaping. I see no evidence that there's any way out. Now I'm waiting for the emergence of the tin cup as chic. Then I'll know it's all over.