by Haven Tso
I have always been a big fan of electronic travelling company. From portable music devices to portable gaming devices, I just need to have one of them to keep me company on the road; especially I travel on public transport a lot.
As an actor, I always like to observe other people on the bus or on the train. It is just something I do as you never know when your observation will come in handy for an audition or a role. What intrigued me lately is the massive popularity of smart phones. In the past phones are just phones. But with smart phones getting more and more powerful, they have become our all in one smart company that they we just poke the screen away. With the introduction of voice control, you can even talk to your phone with “natural” speech to activate searches, make enquiries of notes you made etc. But what is more interesting to me is that although phones are meant to be communicative devices, they now at the same time promote a sense of isolation from your immediate world or environment.
In the past, we know that we want to be absorbed in our own world through our walkman, discman, iPod etc etc. when we were using them. It was a statement that we made to people around us that we do not want to be disturbed. There were times that I pretended to be listening to my music, which in fact the device was not on at all, just to tell people around me that I wanted to be left alone. However, as smart phones start to blur the lines between practicality and entertainment, so does our world of isolation.
I still remember just a few years ago, we found it weird when people are talking on their handsfree on the bus or the train. But now we are used to it. The funny thing for me is that while they are communicating but at the same time they are isolating themselves. Sometimes to an extent that inappropriate conversations were out in the open because they felt so isolated that they didn’t even remember that there are people around. Also, there are so many times that I noticed people were vividly texting again throughout the whole bus journey. They could be talking about something funny or flirting away on their touch screen. Sometimes I did think does touching your screen also mean touching someone’s heart and mind nowadays? As the barriers of communication with people physically far away are quickly melting away, iron curtains were set up around you at the same pace.
There are several occasions that I felt offended because someone was texting away while we were having a conversation. For me I prefer to have someone telling me that they are busy or not interested in a conversation than shovelling me aside through poking on a small screen busily. Communications is made possible through different means, but a three-way with someone inside a touch screen is something definitely less than satisfying. I feel “left out” of the fun that is happening on the screen, which I am clearly informed that I am not part of it. This is especially true when the other parties were busily checking their screens to see whether their unknown distant gaming partners had responded to their game of online Scrabble or Draw Something or not.
So do smart phones really bring people closer? That is relative. It depends on how you define closer. But then who am I to judge? Especially when I am one of the people who sat in the lounge room with his laptop and chatting away online with 3 other people, who were also on their laptops in the same lounge room, discussing about whether we should go into the kitchen to get some ice-cream for desert.
Haven Tso is an actor, writer, graphic designer and blogger.
