Faceplants

I saw a post on social media today that really resonated with me. It's a sign that says "Pay attention while you walk - your Facebook status can wait". It was erected because too many people are paying more attention to their phones and status updates and not where they are walking. There have been videos posted on the Net showing people looking intently at their phones and walking straight into a fountain or into closed doors.

Some may think this is a new-ish phenomenon. I beg to differ.

Years ago, when texting and email push was just starting to be rolled out to business customers, the City of London, England, actually considered padding the street lampposts in the Financial District.

It turns out that everyone who was receiving texts and emails were so intent on what their phones were doing, they were colliding head first into the posts! Luckily, the City Fathers decided that it was too expensive and potentially more dangerous to pad the posts.

Apart from the money, padded posts would just cause the people to bounce off and fall into traffic. That would cause even more traffic tie-ups and slow down the whole system. Putting up a fence would be even more expensive and the Police would lose out on all the fines from jaywalking.

If the post were left unpadded, the worst thing that would happen is the people would get a bump on the head. They wouldn't even be embarrassed - everyone around them would be too engrossed in their phones.

My guess it would only take two times for people to hit a post before they got the message. The first time they would blame the post for jumping out in front of them. The second time, someone would catch it on video and it would end up on YouTube. Either way, people would start to pay some attention.

It a somewhat related story, I was standing in line at a bank, waiting for a teller. For all of you too young to remember, tellers were people who would cash a cheque for you and hand out money that you could put in your wallet. If you don't know what a cheque is, go ask your parents.

Anyway, this was when cell phones with earpieces were still very cutting edge. So there we were, everyone in line keeping to ourselves, when this guy all of a sudden shouts out "Hi!"

Well, I just about jumped out of my skin. So did the other three people in front of me. I turned around to see if he was talking to me and heard "How's it going? Yes, I can do that. No, I'll call you! Bye!"

The guy was staring off into space, above everyone's head. He looked down eventually, not seeming to notice that everyone was staring at him. Then I noticed a wire stuck in his ear and it started to make a little more sense. He was one of those guys that needed the latest and greatest of everything and didn't mind everyone knowing it.

It didn’t help that this was when you had to shout into the inline microphone to be heard. Reminds me of the tin cans connected by a string. Cutting edge indeed.

So remember that everything old becomes new - it's just been repackaged. And keep your head up…