It is stunning how dependent some young people are on their cellphones. As I was riding the Amtrak Surfliner up to San Luis Obispo a couple of years ago, our train went through an area south of Vandenberg Air Force Base where there was no cell phone reception. Across the aisle from me was a college age young woman who had been on her phone pretty much constantly since we'd left L.A. When we lost reception, she fiddled with her phone for about five minutes, then realizing we were in a place with no reception, she put her phone aside. For about two minutes. Then she tried to connect again. Two minutes later she tried again. Every two minutes she tried to connect for the next half hour. She was desperate and I was irritated at her need to call someone.
In an emergency the first reaction of most people these days is not to try and solve the problem (if it is in face solvable) but to call someone and tell them about it. I remember a disaster movie I saw a couple of years ago. The director captured this phenomenon exactly right. A bunch of kids were in high school when some cosmic disaster occurred and the temperature started to drop. Big icicles were forming on the edge of the roof. The common sense hero was urging everyone to run to the basement where they'd be safe. But since there was no reception there one girl rather ran outside on the first floor to call someone to tell them about the disaster and was promptly impaled by a falling monster icicle.
I loved it. The cellphone dependent meet their much deserved fate.
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