Cellphones and brain explosions

A while back there was a rumor circulating that using cellphones could give you brain cancer. A study of 420,000 cellphone users, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, indicates that there is no correlation between cellphone use and cancer, which caused sighs of relief from the thousands of people who like to discuss details of their sex lives and intimate health issues in public places.

Now, however, thanks to a scary email I received yesterday, I find that cellphone users have worse things to worry about than cancer; using your phone can simply make your brain explode.

Don't believe me?  I'll show you.  I excerpt part of the email below:

Do not pick up calls under the following given numbers: 9888308001, 9316048121 91+, 9876266211, 9888854137, 9876715587.  These numbers will come up red in color, if the call comes from these numbers.  It's with very high wavelength, and very high frequency.  If a call is received from mobile on these numbers, it creates a very high frequency and will cause you to have a brain hemorrhage.

It's not a joke, it's TRUE.  27 people have died receiving calls from these numbers.  This has appeared on news programs and has been verified as true, it's not a hoax.  Please forward this on to all the people you care about!

Well, first off, it's a little ironic that I was the recipient of this email.  My phone service provider gives me a weekly rundown of use time, and I average about fifteen minutes a day.  Most of this use is not talking to people, but playing an idiotic game called Snood that I somehow have become addicted to.  Snood involves using a little catapult to launch funny-looking faces at an array of other funny-looking faces, with the Tetris-like goal of getting three or more in a row, at which point they fall off the screen.  The goal is to get all of the faces to fall.  I'd like to say I enjoy Snood, but honestly, mostly what it does is piss me off, because I always flub easy shots and then achieve phone-hurling levels of anger.

I should probably avoid games altogether, honestly, and find a hobby that is more suited to my temperament and level of technological skill, such as making music by banging two rocks together.

Part of the problem is that besides being a Luddite, I just hate telephones in general.  I actually enjoy being in a place where I can't be reached by telephone.  I'm sort of like Pavlov's dog -- but instead of salivating, when the phone rings, I swear.  If people want to communicate with me, my order of preferred modes of contact is as follows:

1. Email
2. Text
3. Social media direct message
4. Every other form of communication ever invented, up to and including carrier pigeon
5. Telephones

I will go to amazing lengths to avoid talking on the phone.  When we order take-out, my wife places the order (two-minute phone conversation) and I drive to pick it up (at least twenty-minute drive each way, because we live in the middle of nowhere), and I still think it's an excellent tradeoff.  As far as people calling me, thank heaven for caller ID, which at least allows me to screen the calls I get and ignore the ones from people I don't want to talk to, which is just about everyone.  The idea of taking a telephone with me, so I can be reached anywhere, has about as much appeal as taking along my dentist on vacation so that he can interrupt my lying around on the beach by doing a little impromptu root canal.

But I digress.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Ed Yourdon from New York City, USA, People using cellphones on a street in New York, CC BY-SA 2.0]

For those of you who actually do use your phones to communicate with other human beings, should you worry about picking up your phone, for fear of your brain exploding?  The answer, fortunately, is no, and we don't need to have a study funded by the National Brain Explosion Institute to prove it.  Without even trying hard, I can find three problems with the contents of the email:

First, there's no way that a cellphone could transmit sound waves at a high enough volume to cause any damage.  Phone speakers are simply not capable of producing large-amplitude (high decibel level) sounds -- phone use isn't even damaging to your ears, much less your brain.  You're at more risk of ear damage from turning the volume up too high when you're listening to music through earbuds than you are from talking to someone on your phone.

Second, how do they know all of this, if all the people it happened to died?  Did the victims pick up their phones, say "Hi," and then turn to their spouses and say, "OMIGOD ETHEL I JUST RECEIVED A CALL FROM 9888308001 AND THE NUMBER CAME UP RED AND NOW I'M HAVING A BRAIN ANEURYSM ACCCCCKKKKK"?

Third, the email itself indicates that the originator has the intelligence of a peach pit, because anyone who's taken high school physics knows that it's impossible for a wave to have high frequency and high wavelength at the same time, as wavelength and frequency are inversely proportional, sort of like IQ and the likelihood of being a Flat Earther.

So, anyway, feel free to continue using your phones without any qualms, and I'll feel free to continue to not use mine.  Maybe one day I'll eventually arrive in the 21st century, and stop being such a grumpy curmudgeon about telephones, and consent to carry one around so I can have constant, 24/7 availability to receive calls about my car's extended warranty.

But don't expect it to happen any time soon.

**************************************

One ringy-dingy...

It will come as no particular shock to people who know me well that I loathe telephones.

I'm not exactly sure why, other than my general introversion.  I will go to significant lengths not to call people on the phone, preferring alternative methods like sending a letter via Pony Express.  When someone calls me, my reaction to the phone ringing is annoyance.  It's like Pavlov's dog, except instead of salivating when the bell rings, I swear loudly.

So it's unsurprising that I resisted getting a cellphone for years.  I hate having phones at home; the last thing I wanted to do was carry one around with me 24/7.  Having a cellphone with me while I'm relaxing on vacation is about as appealing as bringing along a dentist so while I'm lounging on the beach, he can do a little impromptu root canal.

I had one of those old flip phones for a while, which (for me) had the advantage that it had lousy reception, and only occasionally worked.  I also liked that it looked like the communicators on the original Star Trek, and I was sometimes known to flip it open and say, "Beam me up, Scotty," to whoever was calling.

At least I found it funny.

The problem was, I so seldom used it that I never could remember my voicemail password, and in fact, for a long time, I didn't even know my own phone number.  I recall being at the doctor's office, and they were updating my paperwork, and they asked for my cellphone number.  I said I couldn't remember.  The secretary gave me the slow single-eyebrow-raise, and said, "But you do have a cellphone, sir?"  I said, "Yeah, but I never call it, now do I?  So how would I know what the number is?"

From her expression, it was clear she didn't understand what a battle it was even to get me to carry it.  Remembering my phone number was just a bridge too far.

But a couple of years ago, after much cajoling from my wife and friends, I got an iPhone.  And I will admit that there are times it comes in handy.  I like having the GPS capability, even though I wish I could change the computerized voice that gives the directions to, say, Alan Rickman as Snape:

Me: *takes a wrong turn*
Snape voice:  "Why do I bother trying to tell you anything?  You are either deaf or hopelessly stupid.  So now you're lost.  Don't look to me to get you back on track."

Also, I can do essential things like checking to see how many "likes" I have on my last criticism and/or ridicule of Donald Trump on Twitter, and also how many profanity-laced, spittle-flecked responses I got from the #MAGA crowd.

Simple pleasures.

Anyhow, all this comes up because of an article over at the Financial Post, wherein I learned that my acquiescing to getting an iPhone has another downside:

It's going to inform the Antichrist of my whereabouts in the event of the End Times.

This pronouncement came this week from Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.  "The church does not oppose technological progress," Kirill said in an interview on Russian state television, "but I am concerned that someone can know exactly where you are, know exactly what you are interested in, know exactly what you are afraid of, and that such information could be used for centralized control of the world.  Control from one point is a foreshadowing of the coming of Antichrist, if we talk about the Christian view.  Antichrist is the person who will be at the head of the world wide web that controls the entire human race."

I have to admit that I'm with Kirill in the sense that social media's ability to parse my likes and dislikes and demographics and affiliations from my clicks is a little unsettling.  For example, I'm bombarded by advertisements for running gear and scientific gadgetry -- even on sites I've never gone to before.  Most alarming, though, was a conversation that took place with my wife while I had my iPhone in my pocket, about people who dress their dogs up in costumes, in which I mentioned offhand that we should get an AT-AT costume for our coonhound Lena, that her long skinny legs would be perfect for the part.

I got on my computer when I got home, and the first thing I saw on Facebook was...

... an advertisement for AT-AT suits for dogs.

So apparently the Christmas carol about "he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake" is not taking about Santa Claus, it's talking about Mark Zuckerberg.

Anyhow, I'm not all that worried about the Antichrist.  First, I'm an atheist, so I kind of doubt he exists in the first place.  Second, if I'm wrong and the Antichrist exists, it's not like I'd be that hard to find even if I didn't have an iPhone.  I'm kind of hiding in plain sight, you know?

Third, I'm not really sure why he'd want to find me anyhow.  I don't think I'd be that useful to an evil entity intent on taking over the world, unless for some reason the evil entity had a burning desire to learn about the Krebs Cycle.

So there's our news from the fringe for today.  Now, y'all'll have to excuse me, because I gotta go check my Twitter app for the latest likes and hate-tweets.  Antichrist or no Antichrist, I gotta keep up with my public.

*******************************

Carl Zimmer has been a science writer for a long time, and his contributions -- mostly on the topic of evolution -- have been featured in National Geographic, Discover, and The New York Times, not to mention appearances on Fresh Air, This American Life, and Radiolab.  He's the author of this week's Skeptophilia book recommendation, which is about the connections between genetics, behavior, and human evolution -- She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potentials of Heredity.

Zimmer's lucid, eloquent style makes this book accessible to the layperson, and he not only looks at the science of genetics but its impact on society -- such as our current infatuation with personal DNA tests such as the ones offered by 23 & Me and Ancestry.  It's a brilliant read, and one in which you'll learn not only about our deep connection to our ancestry, but where humanity might be headed.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

Social media and social isolation

One of the reasons we have science is that our intuition is so often wrong.

We're misled by dozens of things, from simple failures of our perceptual or processing apparatus, to our preconceived notions and cognitive biases, to falling prey to others who want us to think a certain way.  Science gives us a way around all of that; its understanding relies on data and evidence.  What we thought beforehand, what someone else told us -- none of that matters.

Now, I'm not saying that science has no biases.  There is no endeavor that is completely bias-free.  However, if you want to find a way to the truth, based on the current best knowledge we have, science is the only game in town.

This comes up because of a paper released last week in the Journal of Information, Communication, Society that addresses a commonly-held belief, especially amongst those who are (like myself), "of a certain age;" that social media and the ubiquity of cellphones and other internet-connective devices are going to result in a generation of young adults who don't know how to interact with each other in person -- or, perhaps, who simply don't want to.

Note that this belief is usually founded on nothing but annoyance.  Looking around a bus stop or a doctor's waiting room, and seeing all the faces glued to their Smart Phones, it's easy to imagine that it might be true.  After all, it seems kind of logical, doesn't it?  You stare at your phone rather than connecting to the people around you.  Of course that's going to isolate you, right?

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So Jeffrey A. Hall, Michael W. Kearney, and Chong Xing, of the University of Kansas Department of Communication Studies, decided to test that supposition, and their results appeared last week in the paper "Two Tests of Social Displacement Through Social Media Use."  And the results were unequivocal; frequent social media use had no effect whatsoever on social isolation in teenagers.  Those who were already isolated stayed isolated; those who were already connected stayed connected.  The authors write:

[We present] two tests of the hypothesis that social media use decreases social interaction, leading to decreased well-being.  Study 1 used the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (N = 2774), which is a national probability sample of Generation X, to test displacement over a three-year time period.  Latent change scores were used to test associations among social media adoption in 2009, social media use in 2011, direct contact frequency across years, in relation to change in well-being.  Although social media adoption in 2009 predicted less social contact in 2011, increased social media use between 2009 and 2011 positively predicted well-being.  Study 2 used experience sampling with a combined community and undergraduate sample (N = 116).  Participants reported on their social interactions and passive social media use (i.e., excluding chat via social media) five times a day over five days.  Results indicate that social media use at prior times of day was not associated with future social interaction with close others or with future face-to-face interaction.  Passive social media use at prior times predicted lower future well-being only when alone at prior times.  Neither study supported the social displacement hypothesis.

But... but... our intuition on this seemed so logical, didn't it?  On the other hand, when I think back on my own misspent youth, my memory tells me otherwise.  I was painfully shy, and to say I had no social life in high school is an understatement of colossal proportions.  This was long before the days of Smart Phones and Facebook (hell, my students think it was long before the days of Gutenberg and the Printing Press).  I can therefore guarantee that my own social isolation had nothing to do with social media, because it didn't exist.  And my guess is that if there had been social media, at least it would have given me some way of interacting, other than my preferred method of getting beaten up in the gym locker room.

Jeffrey Hall, who co-authored the study, elaborated on its results.  "It was not the case at all that social media adoption or use had a consistent effect on their direct social interactions with people," Hall said.  "What was interesting was that, during a time of really rapid adoption of social media, and really powerful changes in use, you didn’t see sudden declines in people’s direct social contact.  If the social-displacement theory is correct, people should get out less and make fewer of those phone calls, and that just wasn’t the case."

In fact, the use of social media didn't even affect who they chose to socialize with.  "What we found was that people’s use of social media had no relationship to who they were talking to later that day and what medium they were using to talk to people later that day," Hall said.  "Social media users were not experiencing social displacement.  If they used social media earlier in the day, they were not more likely to be alone later.  It’s also not the case that because they were using social media now, they were not interacting face to face later. …  It doesn’t seem that, either within the same time period or projecting the future, that social media use indicates people not having close relationship partners in face-to-face or telephone conversation."

So science here gives us a chance to challenge our preconceived notions, and in this case finds that our tendency to rant about "kids these days" and "it wasn't like that back in my day" turns out to be false.  The sad postscript, however, is that I don't expect this to change anyone's attitudes.  It's like the study, released last year, that not only does spanking not work to change a child's behavior, it's associated with a host of mental problems later in life, including depression, suicide risk, and drug abuse.

After that study came out -- and it is one of several studies that have reached this conclusion -- there was an outpouring of outrage on social media that "the liberals are trying to stop us from disciplining our kids" and "kids these days are disrespectful and lazy, and wouldn't be that way if they were spanked for it" and (most often) "I was spanked all the time as a kid, and I turned out fine."  Which proves that you can have controlled scientific studies out the wazoo, and it won't stop people from falling back on anecdote and personal experience and what they already believed.

Which is kind of distressing, now that I come to think of it.

Anyhow.  If I can get one person to stop and reconsider what they think, and perhaps base their understanding on hard evidence, I'll have done my job.  Now, y'all will have to excuse me, because it's been a while since I've checked Facebook.  You never know what might have happened in my absence.

TechNoah

I try to avoid simply writing day after day about people saying loony stuff, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

That's why today we're going to consider a scientist in Turkey who believes not only that Noah's Ark and the Great Flood were real, but that a 500-year-old man and his kids were able to build a gigantic boat by themselves because they had access to nuclear power, drones, and...

... cellphones.

I wish I was making this up.  Yavuz Örnek, who is a lecturer at Istanbul University, admitted during an interview on a talk show that the traditional account was unlikely, but then takes the position that the whole thing becomes plausible if you assume something even less likely.

There were huge 300 to 400-meter-high waves and his [the Prophet Noah’s] son was many kilometers away.  The Quran says Noah spoke with his son.  But how did they manage to communicate?  Was it a miracle?  It could be.  But we believe he communicated with his son via cellphone.

And as far as how the Ark survived the forty-day-long storm, he said it was "built of steel plates" and was "powered by nuclear energy."

Then there's the problem of how Noah got two of each of the nine-million-odd species on Earth on board, not to mention keeping the carnivores from doing what carnivores do:

But Örnek has that part solved, too.  He says that the usual picture of the Ark as filled with lots of animals is incorrect; instead, Noah just collected gametes from each species, and stored those.

This brings up a couple of questions:

1. Does he really think that prior to the Flood, Noah went all over the Earth, finding animals, and obtaining sperm and eggs from every single species?  Like, he went to Australia and jacked off a wombat?  Because, um, that's kind of a disturbing image.
2. What happened after the Flood?  Because if all the animals were gone -- drowned in the flood -- having stored sperm and eggs wouldn't do you much good, as there'd be no (for example) female wombats left to incubate the embryos even if you could fertilize the eggs in vitro, rendering your wombat handjob a little useless.

But don't worry about that, Örnek says.  "I am a scientist," he reassures us.  "I speak for science."

As Hemant Mehta points out over at the wonderful site Friendly Atheist, this was hardly the first time that the host of the show, Pelin Çift, had to listen to so-called experts spouting off bizarre theories.   While interviewing Turkish theologian Ali Riza Demircan last year, she collapsed into helpless laughter when Demircan explained that there were certain kinds of sex that were forbidden to devout Muslims, including "oral sex in advanced dimensions."

Whatever that is.  Although I have to admit it sounds like it could be fun.

Then there's theologian Mücahid Cihad Han, who in 2015 was being interviewed and said that people shouldn't masturbate.  A caller to the show told Han that there was nothing wrong with masturbation, even in Mecca during Ramadan.  Appalled, Han told the caller that if he jerked off, he'd "find his hands pregnant in the afterlife."

Which would mean the vast majority of us guys would be saddled with hand-babies in heaven.  Or hell.  Or wherever we're going to end up.

But back to Yavuz Örnek, he of the steel-plated nuclear-powered Ark filled with tubes of eggs and sperm, wherein the captain can communicate with the rest of the crew via cellphones.  What gets me about all this is that saying this stuff doesn't get him laughed out of the country, or at least out of his university.  To be fair, it's not that much weirder than what the American young-earth creationists claim, and they're still widely regarded as intellectually respectable.  (Hell, the whole faculty of Liberty University believes that stuff.)

In any case, all of this proves that there's no idea so completely ludicrous that you can't embellish so as to make it way stupider.  And it also means that, as unlikely as it seems, we have a creationist who is even more ridiculous than Ken Ham.

Which, honestly, is kind of a miracle in and of itself.

Demonic texting

It's an increasingly technological world out there, and it's to be expected that computers and all of their associated trappings are even infiltrating the world of wacko superstition.

About a year ago, we had a new iPhone app for hunting ghosts, called the "Spirit Story Box."  Early this year, there was even a report of a fundamentalist preacher who was doing exorcisms... via Skype.  So I suppose it's not surprising that if humans now can use technology to contact supernatural entities of various sorts, the supernatural entities can turn the tables and use our technology against us.

At least, that's the claim of a Roman Catholic priest from Jaroslaw, Poland, named Father Marian Rajchel.  According to a story in Metro, Rajchel is a trained exorcist, whatever that means.  Which brings up a question: how do you train an exorcist?  It's not like there's any way to practice your skills, sort of like working on the dummy dude when you're learning to perform CPR.  Do they show instructional videos, using simulations with actors?  Do they start the exorcist with something easier, like expelling the forces of evil from, say, a stuffed toy, and then they gradually work their way up to pets and finally to humans?  (If exorcists work on pets, I have a cat that one of those guys should really take a look at.  Being around this cat, whose name is Geronimo, is almost enough to make me believe in Satan Incarnate.  Sometimes Geronimo will sit there for no obvious reason, staring at me with his big yellow eyes, all the while wearing an expression that says, "I will disembowel you while you sleep, puny mortal.")

But I digress.

Father Rajchel was called a while back to perform an exorcism on a young girl, and the exorcism was successful (at least according to him).  The girl, understandably, is much better for having her soul freed from a Minion of the Lord of Evil.  But the Minion itself apparently was pissed at Rajchel for prying it away from its host, and has turned its attention not on its former victim, but on the unfortunate priest himself.

Apparently such a thing is not unprecedented.  According to an article about exorcism over at Ghost Village, being an exorcist is not without its risks:

[John] Zaffis [founder of the Paranormal and Demonology Research Society of New England] said, "You don't know what the outcome of the exorcism is going to be - it's very strong, it's very powerful. You don't know if that person's going to gain an enormous amount of strength, what is going to come through that individual, and being involved, you will also end up paying a price." 

Many times the demon will try to attack and attach itself to the priest or minister administering the exorcism. According to Father Martin's book, the exorcist may get physically hurt by an out-of-control victim, could literally lose his sanity, and even death is possible.

So there you are, then.  Rajchel, hopefully, knew what he was getting into.  But I haven't yet told you how the demon is getting even with Father Rajchel:

It's sending him evil text messages on his cellphone.

According to Rajchel, ever since the exorcism, the demon has been texting him regularly sending him messages like, "Shut up, preacher.  You cannot save yourself.  Idiot.  You pathetic old preacher."  On another occasion, he got the message, "She will not come out of this hell.  She’s mine.  Anyone who prays for her will die."

Which of course brings up the question of how a demon got a cellphone.  Did it just walk into the Verizon store and purchase one?  You'd think the clerk would have noticed, what with the horns and tail and all.  Probably, all things considered, more likely that the demon stole someone's cellphone, although it still does raise the question of how it's paying to keep the cell service going.

It also raises the much more pragmatic question of why Rajchel doesn't just see what number the texts are coming from, and report it to the police.  Odds are it's the girl that he exorcised, and she's not possessed with anything but being a kid and enjoying pranking a gullible old man.

Of course, that's not how the true believers see it, and once you believe in demons and the rest it's a short step to deciding that they can just magically manipulate your machinery.  So I doubt that all of my practical objections would call any of those beliefs into question.

But it does bring up a different issue, which is, if demons can infest cellphones, can they infest other sorts of equipment, too?  Because if so, I strongly suspect that my lawnmower is possessed.  It seems to realize just when my lawn needs to be mowed, and chooses that time to suffer some kind of mysterious breakdown that necessitates my calling Brian the Lawn Mower Repair Guy.  Given how often this happens, maybe Brian is in cahoots with the demon.  Something in the way of a business partnership.  Although you do have to wonder what the demon gets out of it, other than the pure joy of listening to me swear.

Cellphones and brain explosions

A while back there was a rumor circulating that using cellphones could give you brain cancer.  A study published in 2010, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, indicates that there is no correlation between cellphone use and cancer, which caused sighs of relief from the thousands of people who like to discuss details of their sex lives and intimate health issues in public places.

Now, however, thanks to a scary email I received yesterday, I find that cellphone users have worse things to worry about than brain cancer; using your cellphone can simply make your head explode.

Don't believe me?  I'll show you.  I excerpt part of the email below:

Do not pick up calls under the following given numbers:  9888308001, 9316048121 91+, 9876266211, 9888854137, 9876715587.  These numbers will come up red in color, if the call comes from these numbers.  It's with very high wavelength, and very high frequency.  If a call is received from mobile on these numbers, it creates a very high frequency and will cause you to have a brain hemorrhage.

It's not a joke, it's TRUE.  27 people have died receiving calls from these numbers.  This has appeared on news programs and has been verified as true, it's not a hoax.  Please forward this on to all the people you care about!

Well, first off, it's a little ironic that I was the recipient of this email.  My wife recently perused the cellphone use by the members of our family, and found that in the months of May and June I accrued a grand total of seven minutes of cellphone use time.  I suspect that this was actually unusually high, because during May I was away teaching classes at a music workshop weekend in Pennsylvania, and had much higher need for my cellphone than normal.  I use my cellphone so infrequently that when I do need it, I often (1) can't find it, and then when I do find it, (2) the battery is dead, so I have to (3) locate my cellphone charger, and (4) wait several hours for the battery to charge, by which time (5) whatever need I had for a cellphone is long since past.

I think my problem is that besides being a Luddite, I just hate telephones in general.  I actually enjoy being in a place where I can't be reached by telephone.  I'm sort of like Pavlov's dog -- but instead of salivating, when the telephone rings, I swear.  The idea of taking a telephone with me, so I can be reached anywhere, has about as much appeal as taking along my dentist on vacation so that he can interrupt my lying around on the beach by doing a little impromptu root canal. 

But I digress.

For those of you who actually can find your cellphones, and do use them occasionally, should you worry about picking up your cellphone, for fear of your brain exploding?  The answer, fortunately, is no, and we don't need to have a study funded by the National Brain Explosion Institute to prove it.  Without even trying hard, I can find three problems with the contents of the email:

First, there's no way that a cellphone could transmit sound waves at a high enough volume to cause any damage.  Cellphone speakers are simply not capable of producing large-amplitude (high decibel level) sounds -- cellphone use isn't even damaging to your ears, much less your brain.  You're at more risk of ear damage from turning your iPod up too high than you are from your cellphone.

Second, how do they know all of this, if all the people it happened to died?  Did the victims pick up their cellphones, say "Hi," and then turn to their spouses and say, "OMIGOD I JUST RECEIVED A CALL FROM 9888308001 AND THE NUMBER CAME UP RED AND NOW I'M HAVING A BRAIN ANEURYSM ACCCCCKKKKK"?

Third, the email itself indicates that the originator has the intelligence of cream of wheat, because anyone who's taken high school physics knows that it's impossible for a wave to have high frequency and high wavelength at the same time, as wavelength and frequency are inversely proportional, sort of like IQ and the likelihood of watching Jersey Shore.

So, anyway, feel free to continue using your cellphones without any qualms, and I'll continue to not use mine.  Maybe one day I'll eventually arrive in the 21st century, and stop being such a grumpy curmudgeon about telephones, and consent to carry one around so I can have constant, 24/7 availability to receive calls from telemarketers.

But don't expect it to happen any time soon.