June 11, 2012

  • What's in a phone number?

    I got around to thinking more about this question the other day.  Why?  Let's say that I've been more liberal with giving 10 numbers to people I don't know.  I've also been reading Home by Marilynne Robinson, the author of the Pulitzer winning Gilead.  In it there's an ongoing dialogue of what it means to come home, what home was, and now is after a long period of time.

    Perhaps I'm being nostalgic, but maybe also critical of the modern nomadic person and the technology that has contributed to it.  Well, that's being a bit harsh.  I use my phone on a daily basis and am more "connected" to it than in the past.  The fact remains however, that mobile phones have made nomadic existence much easier.  You've all seen it.  People can get absorbed into their phones, as if their very soul was being sucked into it.  A lizard-like affect.  They don't blink and are obsessively tapping their phone.  Ok.  Harsh again.  Mobile phones have been the bearer of good news, a connecting device that allows for otherwise painfully slow communication.  Remember writing letters?  I do, but that's a different blog.  Concerning mobile phone numbers, though. 

    It used to be that giving someone a phone number was directly tied to the home.  If a boy or girl gave you a number, it went through the house (unless of course you had independent lines).  You could try to keep things secret for awhile by dashing to the phone yelling, "I'll get it."  Eventually though, someone would figure it out.  In giving out a phone number, there was an invitation into the home.  To be sure, it wasn't the type where you physically welcomed someone into the house, but there was a sort of respectfulness or trust that was given as if it was.  Why do you think people are so annoyed with unwanted solicitation on the phone?  It's a violation of trust and respect that applied to the home.

    Mobile phones don't appear to have either.  Part of it has to do with mobile existence.  Home is wherever we are.  Where we once occupied a home, the home now occupies us if you can call it that.  It's even more ironic because we tote it in our pockets or in our purses.  The other part has to do with information and its ability to become disposable.  If you don't like your mobile phone number for whatever reason, you can easily get a new one.  Yes, there is the annoyance of having to tell everyone and their mother that you've gotten a new phone number, but with Google backup and Facebook, this can be easily done.....though you'll lose all your pictures and videos if you haven't backed those up.  The point is, home USED to be where your heart was.  Now it's in a piece of technology that makes being an individual far to easy.  Ever wonder why we can only remember our own numbers and not anyone elses?  We don't have to because it's not important enough and we can always just look it up....or tap the screen.

    And there's the shift. 

    The focus is now on the private individual.  Mom, dad, brother, or sister does not get to know who you talk to unless you tell them.  There is no need to run to a phone because its vibrating in your pocket.  You don't even have to answer it because you have your very own voicemail which you can answer as time allows.  True, answering machines did have the ability for separate voicemails, but more often then not it was communal.  "You have reached the __________ residence, please leave your...etc."  Of course when we leave the home, we go into that nomadic existence.  It happened then as it does now, except now, we can do it as children.  We "grow-up" much faster than before.

    So back to what prompted this blog in the first place.

    I wonder if people's perception of phone numbers has changed.  I think it has, which can be liberating but frightening too.  In the past I've hesitated to give my number out.  I still hang on to that old-fashioned sense of home.  There's a trust and respect there, where I am inviting someone into my "home,"  even if it sits on a shelf at work or in my pocket.  It's permission to interrupt my day, so that you can become a part of it.  It's not simply information.  It can't be.  If it is, then it really is frightening because trust and respect have been thrown out the window.  Then one must live with the uncertainty that nothing malicious is being done with information, that nothing bad will happen to your "home."  In an information age where it's hard to know what is real and what is not, the startling conclusion is that we really do trust implicitly.  I mean, do you really know if that shoe you want to buy online is out there and will come to your door as advertised?  Do you really know if that online profile is authentic?  No, we don't.

    And there's the reason for giving phone numbers so long as it isn't simply information.  It's a trust based on a concept of home that speaks to authenticity.

    Ok.  Enough talk.  Time to settle down with a nice scotch for the night.