Marketing philosopher Seth Godin has more in common with me than I thought.  He hates cellphones too.  Not because they are a blight on society, making access ubiquitous and (ugh) on demand, but because he can’t stand the fact that the sound quality sucks. 

Am I the only person who wants a Hi Def telephone?

A headset that sounds better than the handheld receiver, and a handheld receiver that delivers the kind of quality calls we had back in the day…

I want to have a phone call where I don’t have to strain to hear the other person, apologize for static, call people back because they went through a dandelion storm…

No Seth, no.  Me too! 

While Seth explains it in marketing terms, that people are willing to give up convenience for quality, I suspect he has the same problem I do.  I can’t hear as well as I used to.  And no, Mom, it’s not because I was listening to Buddy Miles with the sound turned up to 11 on my Koss earphones when you told me it would make me deaf.  At least I don’t think so.

Whatever the reason, my hearing isn’t what it used to be.  My eyes aren’t either, but then whose are?  As people adapt to the use of cellphones in lieu of real telephones, or “land lines” as they come to be called by those who sneer at anyone who doesn’t text, it’s time to come to grips with a cold, hard fact.  Cellphones are not a sufficiently reliable means of communication.

You can debate how wonderful, how miraculous they are all you want.  In fact, you may have plenty of time to ponder the question when no one shows up for your arraignment after you’ve left a message for your lawyer that you’ve been arrested via a cellphone.  No amount of argument, no heartfelt rationale, is going to alter the fact that cellphones fade in and out, garble your words, leave the other party to hope that he’s heard what you’ve said, without any assurance that communication was well received.

Perhaps other ears, younger ears, are more attuned to the incomprehensible sounds emitted through the itty-bitty speaker.  Perhaps missing the 38 ties “you know?” is spoken in the course of a sentence isn’t deemed particularly important.  Or perhaps this is just a old folks problem, as the weight of time and human frailty takes its toll on our poor ears.  But I just can’t stand the crackle and gaps that happen regularly on a cellphone.

Granted, I have some issues hearing when there’s no cellphone in sight, such as when Dr. SJ speaks to me from another room, facing in an opposite direction, mumbling under her breath, but I believe that she really doesn’t want me to hear what she has to say, though she will later insist she absolutely, positively did tell me that her parents were coming for a two month visit.  I think that’s different.

So yes, Seth, I share your desire for a Hi Def telephone.  I want to hear what people are saying to me without struggling, straining, asking them to repeat themselves, and repeat themselves again. 

And if not a Hi Def telephone, I would settle for a nice old black bakelite one with a metal rotary dial.  I was always able to hear what’s being said on an old rotary phone.