Communication obsession

You know how it seems like you can't go anywhere these days without being treated to one-sided cell phone conversation? Whether in the check-out line at the store, waiting for a movie to start, or even in the hallway at church, it seems that people are always feeling the need to reach out and touch someone (for those of you old enough to remember that ad campaign), even when surrounded by others.

Text messaging, of course, takes it to a whole new level. It seems no venue is off-limits to texters. Church meetings, work meetings, traveling in the car, watching a movie, sharing a dinner with family or friends -- all opportune times for shooting off a few texts to individuals not present.

Sadly, I've grown accustomed to all of this stuff, and it's been a long time since I was surprised by someone's choice about when or where to make a cell phone call. Nonetheless, it happened this past week.

I attended Andrew's high school graduation on Friday, and although there was plenty of calling and texting going on from the audience, here was the shocker -- more than a dozen or so of the graduates crossed the stage to receive their diplomas with cell phones glued to their ears. OK, OK, so maybe there was someone out there that wanted to remotely share in this momentous occasion, but there was a time when it was understood that that's why camcorders were invented. You didn't compromise the experience itself in order to share it with people who couldn't be present.

Perhaps the day is not far distant when we will see brides and grooms (although presumably not in the temple) whipping out phones in the midst of the ceremony. That scenario has been the source of "humorous" commercials, but now I'm not sure they're so far from reality.