Comments | chayam: Cranky Post: You Don't Need a Cell Phone For Your Kid

chayam

Cranky Post: You Don't Need a Cell Phone For Your Kid

Nov 18, 2008 18:12

I received an email today from someone wanting a cell phone for her son; her son's was stolen and she was hoping someone might have an extra (Verizon, specifically) cell phone they could give her. "When he's with his friends or has missed the bus it puts me at ease to know that he contact me and let me know what's going on," she wrote ( Read more... )

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Harumph! sennomo November 20 2008, 00:23:07 UTC

I agree. Absolutely nobody needs a cell phone.

Re: Harumph! cos November 20 2008, 05:02:01 UTC

Nor do we need livejournal, email, the Internet, cars, a nationally regulated currency, or running water in our homes. Depends on how you define "need". The human race made it through the middle ages. I just don't want to go there myself. Expectations change as time moves, and there are things nobody had a couple of hundred years ago that I'd consider a need today (a landline to call 911? safe heating & cooling? universal suffrage?). Obviously as these things change, people from previous generations don't quite see them the same way as newer generations, and some generations are split down the middle. But I always look askance at proclamations made across that divide.

Re: Harumph! sennomo November 20 2008, 22:34:09 UTC

At best, your argument is relying on a slippery slope; at worst, it is a straw man argument.

I would not enjoy the middle ages, either, but there is a lot of technology between there and here. (If you slide to the middle ages, why not slide down to the Stone Age?)

No one can seriously group cell phones and the Internet into the same category as running water, for at least one simple reason: No matter how many lives are reportedly saved by telecommunications, that number will never become comparable to the number of lives saved by our modern water systems. On a scale of necessity, I would place cell phones somewhere closer to Prada bags than running water.

The question of cell phones isn't even about the olden days. There are millions of children in the US and more around the world today who are doing fine without cell phones.

Fundamentally, for something to be necessary, it takes more than just someone claiming that it is, regardless of generation.

Re: Harumph! cos November 20 2008, 22:36:53 UTC

I disagree with you. Notice that I am *not* attempting to define cell phones as "need" or "not need" - I'm not taking sides on that. My point is that when something is new we cannot be trusted to see what role it "should" play, and that whatever the merits of things we take for granted now, when they were new they also were not seen as needs. All these arguments about how you "don't need" a cell phone just seem like assertions lacking data. We're in no position to take a position on the topic, IMO.

Re: Harumph! sennomo November 21 2008, 00:24:53 UTC

Notice that I am *not* attempting to define cell phones as "need" or "not need" - I'm not taking sides on that.

But the whole point of the original post, and my response to it, was precisely about need, not about merely liking or valuing something. If you're not talking about need, then I don't understand your original problem with what I said. (I never said that new things are not valuable.)

All these arguments about how you "don't need" a cell phone just seem like assertions lacking data.

If you are seriously pressing such a point, I ask:
1) What kind of data do you want?
2) Are you asserting that cell phones are more vital than running water?

We're in no position to take a position on the topic, IMO.Why are we in no such position? We are members of the same society. We collectively determine values and norms. We (including you) take positions on such things every day, even if we are not always very vocal about it ( ... )

Re: Harumph! cos November 21 2008, 17:04:10 UTC

You're expressing and living by your values. Other people have different values. They're shaped by context. I have a friend who thought it'd be better to raise her children without them using computers or the net until they were older, and so she did. I would never have made such a choice, because I think they'll be in some ways less well prepared for the world they're going to live in. I also know that some things I consider basic needs, like a phone and water, are not considered such by other people. It's not my place to tell them "you do need this stuff", though that wouldn't keep me from wanting to help them have the things I consider important ( ... )

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