Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?
I have to say that story was told many times before the advent of GPS and/or cell phones. We had a few years where it seemed that every December when it started snowing somebody would have to go exploring and wouldn't make it back. I travel a lot of marginal roads and am set up for most situations; yet you wouldn't believe the people that I see in the darnedest places and find myself wondering what they would do if they got in trouble. On one occasion I was 20 miles in the woods on roads that were so icy that I had sanded the approaches to all of the bridges; I thought I was the only person for miles yet one day I met a Chevy sedan with handicapped plates, and some old guy just out "exploring." On another occasion I had chained up and beaten a path up a snow covered road, and kept it packed down so that I could get to where I was working. One day I was headed out and met a Subaru on a hill. He thought that I was going to pull over and let him go by.
It didn't happen... I would still be there.
Eons ago, two guys were outside a cave on a cliff - one of them grunted "
Hey, hold my club and watch this !".
Yep, even without technology around, plenty of people make poor choices.....
Notwithstanding the heavy pysch manipulation that's built into some modern applications, things "feel" different today.
Similar to how certain people have "challenges" interacting responsibly with booze, drugs, or vehicles - phones seem to be gateway device to inappropriate or questionable actions for some people.
Dedicated cameras (back to 35mm days) often had delayed shutter timers on them. I don't recall USA or Canadian federal parks having to run public service notices telling people "Don't take pictures of yourself with bears !" back when. Do I solely blame recent technology for selfie-idiots ? No - there's a lot more that has gone wrong here than even I would blame Facebook et al for....
Cell phones started out as a mobile safety tool..... nobody wants to have a breakdown in the middle of nowhere...... somehow that morphed into the mobile safety hazards we have today. Some of the worst distracted driving I've witnessed was from LEOs.
There's been good examples in this thread of apps that people find useful. But, certain people (and, at times, all of us....) just need to
Say No to Cell Phones.....
Rgds, D.