(This is from a Journalist friend on mine writing in the Melbourne Sun)

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23562498-5000117,00.html

James Norman
April 19, 2008 12:00am

THERE comes a time when it is worth taking a step back
and reflecting on the depths of stupidity to which we
as a race are sinking.

I had such a moment of cynical epiphany recently when
I heard news from London that they have had to start
installing “texting-proof ” furniture in public
thoroughfares.

Apparently there has been a spate of instances where
people have forgotten the importance of maintaining
peripheral vision while walking down the street. They
simply walk, text and break bones bashing into items
of public furniture, or other hapless pedestrians.

In Britain, there were estimated to be 6.6 million
such accidents last year, and now the lampposts in
London’s Brick Lane have been padded to protect
against such injuries.

It is proposed that if the trial is successful, it
will be rolled out to other “texting black spots”.
Anyone who has wandered around Melbourne’s streets
will know that the problem is certainly not isolated
to London. But when Londoners were surveyed about
padded public furniture, almost 50 per cent said they
thought it was a good idea.

Other suggestions being looked at by London City
Council include “mobile motorways”, like bike lanes,
giving people a brightly coloured lane to walk along
safely.

It would be funny if it weren’t true.

There was a time (not so long ago) when anyone who was
seen in public talking into their mobile was thought
of as a bit of a tool. Now it has become completely
normal.

Much as we are now expected to simply sit and endure
while our friends or acquaintances chat or text -
while we are in mid-conversation with them.

And, yes, I have even had friends report to me how
they felt when their then partners responded to a text
message in the middle of having sex - but I won’t even
go there now.

Former Wired Magazine editor and writer Douglas
Coupland pointed out recently that we have reached a
point in human history where the use of decades and
calendar years as a measure for time is over.

Time is now measured in “tech waves” to both define
and demarcate eras. While he perhaps overstates it, I
can think of life pre or post-Facebook, and certainly
it is easy to mark out the era before or after the
internet.

So, we have now apparently entered the era where we
must accept that mobile phones, and the subsequent
public health implications of walking and texting, are
simply a fact of life that public health authorities
have to take into account in planning legislation.

I think I had a taste of the next era the other night.
I was out with a friend who had recently returned from
the US with one of the new Apple iPhones.

These devices deliver on the promise of smooth, fast
internet connection, with a bigger screen and more
fancy gadgetry.

We were discussing the recent tour to Melbourne of
British singer Roisin Murphy. Another friend suggested
she was from the band Portishead, but we were quite
certain it wasn’t the case.

No problem, said my iPhone-equipped friend - I’ll just
look it up on Wikipedia. So we sat there in this city
bar while he connected to the internet and verified
that she was not the vocalist for Portishead, although
she had sung with the group.

In a few years this will be normal.

We won’t really have to think too much, because we’ll
be able to just look at any problems that cross our
paths on Google while visiting the supermarket, or
even in a public lavatory.

James Norman is a Melbourne writer