The New York Times – always on the cutting edge of technology.

by sam on 01/30/2005

So I’m reading through the NY Times RSS feed this morning, and I get to this op-ed, which, in all seriousness, proclaims "drunk dialing" as the newest problem of the information age, thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones.

Uh…OK.

Except it’s certainly not a "new phenomenon", and back in the technological dark ages of my college days, before anyone (let alone everyone) had a cellphone, drunk dialing was a pretty common occurrence. In fact, if they kept records on this sort of thing, I imagine that it’s a "phenomenon" that developed around the same time as the telephone.

Cellphones certainly make it easier to drunk dial with abandon, thanks to stored numbers and the availability of a phone at all times, but that’s certainly not the perspective taken by the op-ed in phrases like this intro:

To the list of the unforeseen hazards that seem to plague the information age, we can now add another: "drunk dialing."

This late-night cellular faux pas joins such exalted company as the "mistaken dial" (when your mobile phone, inadvertently prompted, dials a number in your address book by mistake) and the annoying ring tone that can interrupt big job interviews or Communion service.

But unlike its predecessors, drunk dialing usually limits itself to times long after the close of business and beyond the daily commute.

So, apparently something that existed for decades has been "preceded" by the type of incidents that can only exist in cellphones…It’s only been a week since Safire retired, and they’ve already forgotten how to use the english language.

Maybe I’m just being bitter because, back in those neanderthal college days, I actually almost missed a final exam thanks to the drunk dialing antics of my friend Dande. It was probably my mistake to keep the phone and the alarm clock next to each other, but when the phone rang at 3a.m., I first turned the alarm clock off before realizing that the phone was still ringing. Fell back into a deep sleep and woke up at 8:30 in the morning. The exam, which I ultimately arrived at still in my pajamas, had started at 8.

Tags: , ,