Ghost who calls
The Hindu : The small room resounded with the rhythm of castanets, harmonium keys and clapping. Repeated lines soared to reach a frenzied crescendo. The pulsating music was guaranteed to transport you to another plane. Rajeshwari Vinod was certainly physically present as she sat blinking into her mobile. “Ah, um,” she explained after the aarthi, “I was expecting a call. I thought I heard the ring tone.”
That’s one more thread in tech’s tightening grip on us. In a growing phenomenon called ringxiety or fauxcellarm, sufferers hear the SMS beep or ring tone, even feel the vibrations when these are non-existent. Medical dictionaries might christen it “phantom mobile call”. Ah, sweet revenge! Mobile users began their public assault by stepping onto balconies and verandahs to connect loudly and wirelessly.
Then, cell phone in hand stepped into the streets. They walked down crowded streets merrily chatting with disembodied voices.Soon they launched the beach-offensive. In a Pavlovian response, people reach for the mobile when you sit talking to them. In front of that hypnotising 6”x 3”, you, who can speak, hear and gnash teeth, are a powerless shadow. Your listener keeps casting glances at the little monster’s face for SMS. You were then startled by the sight of shoppers talking to themselves in shop aisles. Mind-boggling choices must have done him in, you thought, till you noticed the wires and the widgety buttons in the ears. The wire-free avatars dug a new low in public behaviour. Ringxiety is probably poetic justice. Retribution for mobile users’ contempt for the convenience of those around. Lesson: you can’t escape the wireless web you’ve spun around yourself.
“Ok, I do feel the BlackBerry vibrating in my belt even as I reach for it on the table,” admitted R. Kannan, a businessman. “I guess that makes me a junkie. But BB is my lifeline.” The CEO of a start-up wakes up in the middle of…More
