On this Terrestrial Ball

One guess for what the title of my blog refers to today. Yep, we are talking about the smartphone. A blessing or a curse. A benefit or a detriment. An aid or a crutch.  All of the above. So, I was sitting in the mall the other day, doing a little people watching.  Lots of tourists in the town I’m in – Europeans, Americans, Russians, and Asians (and so on).  Truly a melting pot and that’s especially true in a retail mall where there is one universal behavior we all have in common – shopping. As I’m sitting there observing (please note I was not on my phone nor was I even holding it) I started to count how many people were visibly engaged with their smartphones – either actively using their phones while they were walking, or holding their phones in their hands while walking or standing, or where their phone was visibly showing on their person (in their pocket or sticking out of a purse or armband, etc.).  The final category was finding a person who was just walking wit...

My wife and I went to see some movies in the theater recently.  Every single time there were one or more people in the theater who felt compelled to whip out their phones during the movie and check their messages, the brightness of their phones penetrating the dark theater like a lightning bolt flashing across the sky.  Apparently, the commercial that the theaters always show about being polite by not talking and not checking your phone during the movie were lost on them.  Or perhaps they are just being selfish, self-centered, and rude, living in their own world with their own rules of self-convenience.  We were watching this one movie where there were literally only five people attending, including us and I thought, finally, no one will whip out their phone.  But no, the one person in the theater who came in late and sat two seats over from us (why she didn’t find a seat further away in a theater that was 99% empty I’ll never know) took out her phone at least f...