Grass Clippings: Inventor of the Cell Phone Asks , ‘Have We Gone Too Far?’

By Maddie Zins
Staff Columnist

These innovations that plague the United States’ history of consumerism start with goals as innocent as to attempt to communicate across physical divides. Yet, it is in their adjustments over time where they change the face of the earth as well as society.

This unforeseen development makes us wonder whether or not what we create today will morph into monstrous creatures that are harmful to our planet, and those who propagate it.

CNN’s interview and write-up of Martin Cooper, the brain behind the cell phone, portrays the creator’s view of where we are with cell phones today. In the interview Cooper tells the story of the device’s creation and reflects on his company, Motorola’s, anticipation of the cell phone’s future popularity. He describes how Motorola knew everyone would come to have their own cell phones, as the company knew the device’s widespread use was imminent once they put a prototype on the market.

Cooper credited this forethought success to the convenience factor and, specifically, how cellular phones make it easier to connect with people from great distances. Cooper definitely hit on an important point in trying to find the reason for not only the cell phone’s widespread use, but also the adjustments it in turn made on society.

The cell phone, Cooper believes, may be taking a turn for the worse. He targets the use of apps and cameras, and the overall increased accessibility of many resources in minimal spans of time as the sources for his unsettled feelings toward the cell phone’s development of late.

Cooper says that combining all the features on cell phones we have today makes the phones complex, difficult to use, and, overall, distracting for consumers who are not engineers trained in using the devices. After giving away his iPhone and settling for a more basic device, Cooper looks fearfully at the future for the cell phone technology yet to come.

This story, besides being reminiscent of Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein” (which many of you probably wished you’d never have to think about again after high school), shows us the style of innovational growth in America.

Many products and ideas start off small, expand far beyond the creator’s wildest hopes or imagined fantasies, and go a step past the comfortable realm of pride in the minds and hearts of their designers. It is generally at this point when the environmental toll is realized or brought more fully to light for the public.

Once use is common and pervasive among the general public, the environment tends to suffer regardless as to whether it is from the direct use or further changes made on devices that lead to the negative environmental effects.

The cell phone is no different.

The increased amount of resources available on cellular devices increases the amount of energy they use in order to charge and to initially create the phone itself. Also, the increase in their use and creation has led to the increase in waste that cell phones propagate—the more people want/use cell phones, the more cell phones companies will make and consumers will use.

Looking at technological advancement today, it is my belief that we must be more mindful.

We must try to imagine whatever products or ideas we hope to create and mentally set them in place as they might work in our world today. Perhaps not to stop their creation, but rather to point it in a more life-sustaining direction.

In order to continue living on this planet, I think we need to plan in terms of what environmental and cultural tolls our innovations may come to have in the future.

A heightened awareness of environmental implications is the first step. As I have seen it play a greater role in the industry markets of today, I am hopeful for what great strides might come of this “mindful marketing” and what gains it might bring us in the attempt to prosper our society and our planet.