Very unimportant person - reaction to modern communications - Column

National Review, April 17, 1995 by Andrew Ferguson

A FEW weeks ago I found myself tagging along with an earth-moving VIP as he went about his daily duties. He was busy. It is his business to be busy. We went from meeting to meeting, ducked in at social gatherings, greeted countless strangers, ate on the run. Late in the evening, however, there was a momentary lull in his schedule. He took me into a conference room and pointed to a telephone.

``We've been running around so much, you'll probably need some phone time,'' he said. He picked up another phone and began dialing. I understood at once that I was supposed to do the same -- to fill these precious, unbusy minutes allotted to us by making urgent phone calls. The problem was, I didn't have anyone to call, urgently or otherwise. It was 10:30 at night. I called my wife.

``Everything's going fine,'' I told her, nodding and smiling to the VIP across the room. He seemed happy I was making efficient use of phone time.

``Good,'' said my wife.

``So I'll be home some time later,'' I said.

``Great,'' she said.

``So.''

``So,'' she said.

``I guess I'll talk to you later.''

``Good,'' she said.

I rang off and shifted in my seat. The VIP spoke into the phone in hushed tones, hung up, dialed again, resumed speaking in hushed tones. He repeated the pattern for several minutes, while I stared at my phone. He glanced my way only occasionally, with a puzzled look, as though I had taken off my pants. And I did feel naked, in a way. Before this extraordinarily powerful man I sat exposed as a VUP, a very unimportant person, a loser -- a guy who, granted the privilege of phone time, couldn't hack it. Eventually I picked up the phone again and called my office, listening to my voice-mail greeting over and over. ``That's good,'' I said at irregular intervals, in hushed tones.

Over the next few days my feelings of inadequacy hardened into indignation, and a warm sense of superiority returned. I'm proud to be unmoved by this thoroughly modern need to be in constant touch. The ultimate trophy is the fax machine that some communication addicts are said to have in their cars; but the more commonplace cellular phone will do just as well. You see the guys and gals walking down the boulevards of every major city, these yuppies with the portable phones attached to their ears, stopping traffic, tripping over hydrants, bumping into lampposts. There are 25 million cellular-phone users in the United States today, displaying (I've decided) an infantile yearning for incessant stimulation, a pathetic play for self-validation, a quest for identity in quicksand: I talk on the phone, therefore I am.

I'm not sure what the point of it all is -- and I wonder, sometimes, whether the communication addicts know, either. And cellular phones are just the beginning. Last summer, I signed up with an on-line computer service to enjoy at last the benefits of e-mail. Instant communication with anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world! To inaugurate my new life on-line, I e-mailed a friend in California who had been cajoling me for months to join him in cyberspace. ``I'm finally on-line!!!'' I e-mailed. (E-mail is a blunt, vigorous medium, demanding overuse of exclamation points.) I waited for his reply. After three weeks I called him. ``Oh,'' he said, ``I haven't checked my mail for a while. Let me read it.'' Ten minutes later he called back. ``It's about time you got on-line,'' he said. ``These are the Nineties. How are the kids?'' We had a nice long chat.

YOU don't have to be a latterday Henry David Thoreau -- and who would want to be? -- to note the central irony of the Information Age: As our means of communication accelerate, there are fewer things of interest to talk about and fewer interesting people to talk about them with. Anyone who doubts this need only sign on to one of the ``chat rooms'' offered by CompuServe or America Online. ``Megadeath rules!'' one communicator will argue. ``Megadeath sucks!'' another will counter, and thus the conversation will develop, for hours and hours. So little to say, so many ways to say it. See the businessman on the transatlantic flight, with $4,000 of microcosmic hardware resting in his lap, plugging in his fax modem with trembling fingers so he can access . . . at the speed of light! in maxicolor liquid crystal display! . . . the New York Times op-ed page.

Oh, but why? One of the attractions of flight used to be the blessed isolation it offered. Now, with a few keystrokes, you can put Anthony Lewis in the seat next to you. I do not think this is progress. Even the most incidental moments of isolation can be avoided -- thanks to the fax in the car, the portable phone in the pocket, the modem in the airplane. I'm having none of it. I embrace my VUPness with honor and pride. Like the fruitcake Thoreau, I move through life unencumbered by gadgets, unfettered by the hardware of a heedless age. Unless, of course, someone wants to buy me one of those little handheld portable TVs. (They come with color screens now.) -- Andrew Ferguson