Text-Message Story spreads

CNN finally reported on the passing of Tara McAvoy-and like I said this morning, they think she was distracted by pager.

Ridor said "where's her common sense?" A lot of people are upset about his statement. I'm not: he's right, just kind of coarse about it. I haven't met one person Deaf or hearing who doesn't get totally taken out of this world when paging someone or being paged! I have "guided" friends through traffic in the past when they become entranced by the little glowing screen. As an example of blackberry addiction, I'd like to share a story about Ridor. I think he forgets himself!

I remember one time he came to me freaking and thinking his pager had broken-it took me a while to calm him down. He was gesturing and going "I tried taking the battery out, I tried turning it off and on, I tried the reset thing..." I calmed him down so I could take a look at it, and, you know, figure out what the problem was - everything seemed to be working. I decided to go ahead and email his blackberry address, everything came through. I explained to him and he ignored me! He kept saying "No, it's broken, why didn't I get any messages from anyone? Why? For so long?" The answer was really obvious to me so I had my "duhhhhh stupid man" look on my face. "Because nobody paged you! Nobody wants to talk to you! You're not popular! Sorry!" The look on his face was so FUCKING funny (satisfied, beth?) The point is he was so addicted to his blackberry that he slept with it, ate with it, peed with it...

I agree it should be common sense to look around and not get totally distracted by the conversation in our hands (or by them.) But they have become so important and so dominant of our lives that now we are experiencing Cell Phone Syndrome. This is exactly what happens to hearing drivers with their cell phones. They become totally distracted and have car accidents or (if walking) bump into things and walk into traffic. So yeah, it should be common sense for all of us. Maybe it's just true that our technology has outpaced our common sense.

OK, this story, yeah, freaked me out. This was a senseless occurrence and it could happen to anyone. The Wal and I are both grieving for this woman and promising to be careful to each other and (in a gentle, unannoying way) remind our friends to be careful. That's the important thing.