Now, don’t get me wrong. Of all the inventions of my lifetime, one I am happy to welcome unreservedly is the mobile phone. It has, after all, changed our lives. And the best thing about them is of course that they are mobile…
This lunchtime, I went out for a brief walk in the sunshine. During the course of a fifteen-minute amble through the streets of a certain great city, I started to notice that I was in a beleaguered minority. For my mobile phone was in my pocket. Everyone else’s was clamped to their ear, as they talked and walked their way down the street.
In order to escape this conference call from hell, I wandered into a supermarket in search of some Parmigiano Reggiano with which to complete this evening’s supper. When I reached the appropriate chiller cabinet, the aisle was blocked by a woman, her trolley and her mobile phone; she too was talking and walking – the former as quickly as possible and the latter as slowly as she knew how.
Now, multi-tasking might well be an admirable skill – and it is possible, although unlikely in the extreme, that women are better at it than men. But how come all those I encountered today had limited themselves to just two tasks at a time, when three were what was needed?
After all, ‘looking where you are going’ surely still has something to commend it…
Stephen Marsden ND