1. Cell phones and class. The teacher arrives as usual, at seven. He says good morning, but no one answers. The cell phone steals the attention of all the students. Are twenty. Absorbed in their small screens, they watch who knows what. Nobody has taken out their notebook. Some don’t even have them. They don’t even know they’re sitting there. The teacher asks: “Did you read the chapter of the book I assigned you?” Again no one answers. The teacher resigns: no one read. The students don’t even feel like making up an excuse. Then the teacher starts his class that no one attends. Taught, it seems, in a desert. Cell phones are now the teachers of the class.
2. The couple who don’t look at each other. She arrived at the table first. The waiter asks what she will have. She scores. Her gaze is already fixed on his cell phone. They bring him coffee and seconds later the groom arrives. They greet each other with a kiss. Two or three words and both of them start talking on his phone. They eat in silence, without looking at each other. They are so close and so far from there. Very far from your love story. Of his ignored love.
3. And they gave him both. Leaning on the pillow, it’s two in the morning. And probably all four. She has seen hundreds of tiktoks. The infinite short stories, with their infinite repetitions. The dream is gone. Today, Wednesday, like Monday and Tuesday, dawn will arrive, lost in a sea of images. He has to get up at five thirty to go to work. But again, it won’t arrive in time. And she’s already exhausted her excuses to the boss.
4. The cfamily meal Sunday. The table is served. The delivery motorcycle arrived at almost three o’clock with Chinese food: the city’s favorite. Everyone likes. There is unanimous acceptance. The television is on, but no one watches it. It’s a game show from five years ago. Everyone absorbed in their cell phone. There are six of them from home and they have invited the grandparents. They barely greet each other. Everyone with their cell phones in their hands. Saturated with information and the irrelevancies of the network. There is silence at the table. We no longer talk or discuss like before. That’s the new family scene.
5. Politicians and cell phones. The opening event of the school year has begun. At the table of honor are the education authorities and the mayor. Each one is checking their cell phone. Endlessly moving his thumb up. It is a presidium of bowed heads. They don’t even pretend to pay attention to what is being said in the act. The audience present also does the same. The speakers who come to the podium shout their speeches into the air. And there they stay.
6. At the cinema with his cell phone on. The little screen of the phone of the person in front of my seat dazzles me. And he is not the only one in the room, already full of small lights that look like artificial stars. The big screen and its film cannot withstand the personal screens of cell phones and their alienation. Pay for a movie ticket to go see your cell phone? Well yes.
7. Texting in the car. A friend from work has crashed his car three times for writing on his cell phone. Texting. He has that vice. And also, for now, good luck. No matter how much we tell him and lecture him, he doesn’t listen. Neither will he. When we scold him, he always asks us: “And you guys never do that?” Whoever is free from sin, let him throw away the first cell phone.
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