Does a smartphone make us smart?
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><em>Barbara Binland is the pen name of a senior, Julie Grenness, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is a poet, writer, and part-time English and Maths tutor, with over 40 years of experience. Her many books are available on Amazon and Kindle.</em></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><u>Does a smartphone make us smart?</u></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Once upon a childhood, we recall that we lived in a different world. On Saturday</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">afternoons, our parents would drive us to a far-flung suburb, where our maternal</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">grandparents lived. The adults loved us dearly, but believed that children should be seen</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">and not heard.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">We would arrive punctually at 2pm. After a brief pit stop, our Nanna would say,</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">“Go for a walk!” Our mother would add, “Come back at four o’clock.” So that is exactly what</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">we did.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">In an unfamiliar suburb, with no street directory, or no GPS, or no watches to tell</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">the time, not even a modern plastic bottle of water for refreshment, three young</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Australians would “Go for a walk!” Thus, we walked, past front yard gardens, along strange</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">streets. We would walk for approximately one hour, then we turned around and walked</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">back to our grandparents’ home. My elder sister must have had a good sense of geography.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Upon reflection, I do wonder what the current parent police would say now, to such</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">child-raising habits. As every reader is aware, these days, there are smart phones employed</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">to supervise children’s adventures in society. Such smart phones had not been imagined</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">once, let alone invented.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Our oldies collectively had no idea where we were walking to, or even if we would</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">return let alone at the correct time. Somehow, we just knew it was nearly four o’clock in</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">the afternoon. Maybe we all lived in a safer world, where we were mostly a lot more naïve</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">than folk and children are today.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Times change. These days, in the digital world of the 21<sup>st</sup> century, if children go for</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">a walk, the parent police phone their offspring up every five minutes on their smart phones.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">As passers-by, we can hear some very strange conversations, in shopping centres or railway</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">stations. Here is one I heard, not long ago.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The parent police must have asked, “Where are you now?”</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Teenager on phone: “I am at the shops, Mum.”</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Mum must have inquired, “Where are you going?”</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Teenager’s response: “I am going to the loo!”</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Mum’s next question, “What are you doing now?”</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Teenager, sounding slightly exasperated, “I’m in the loo, having a wee! Mum!””</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Well, really. I wondered if it was really necessary to share with society, including</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Now there is someone calling on my smart phone! Whoops missed call. I must cease</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">everything and return the call. It seems everyone I see is either gazing at a smart phone, or</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">chatting on one. Are we so scared to be alone?</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Are we all like the teenager in the shopping centre loo, with her mother calling her</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">incessantly on her smart phone, the modern parent police? Would parents in these modern</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">days even say, “Go for a walk!”, to send their children off for two hours, with no time pieces,</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">or smart phones to monitor them? These days the parents must check for the location of</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">their children, and for potential predators.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">So, the world is no longer as safe as it once appeared to be. There was the famous</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">case of the Beaumont children. “Go for a walk, go for a swim!” Those three children have,</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">unfortunately, never been seen again.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Amazingly, the three young girls we once were never disappeared, got lost, and</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">always arrived back by four o’clock, unmolested. These days, our mother would have</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">phoned us every five minutes on our smart phones, so we were not feeling apart. The smart</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">phone is a great invention, but if everyone has to relate every action on a smart phone, has</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">the smart phone really made us smart? Food for thought. “See ya!” (The great Australian</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">smart phone farewell.). Yeah, “See ya!”</p>