E-Mail This Article to a Friend Pocket of babble Constant electronic access makes it possible to be unwholesome and boring 24/7 BY ALAN OLIFSON

I am scared. I now know more than one person with a Treo. For the analog among you, the Treo is a full-featured mobile phone and electronic organizer with wireless e-mail, text messaging, Web browsing, and a digital camera all condensed into one pocket-size morsel of constant contact. The Treo represents a turning point in civilization. Our communications technology has now finally exceeded our actual need to communicate.

These little combination devices have been around for a few years, but they’re now starting to get small and affordable enough to be purchased by people other than my dad. And this is the beginning of the end. Because, if I may be frank, I don’t think we’ve proven very adept at handling cell phones, e-mail, and the Internet individually. Putting them together cannot be a good idea.

There is such a thing as too in touch.

Just a few years ago, the act of being out of the house in and of itself implied you would not be reachable. Now if I’m going to be out of cell-phone range for more than 20 minutes, I have to alert my next of kin. Lord knows I don’t want to miss any of the many time-sensitive conversations I have during the course of a day, most of which involve discussing why I didn’t answer a previous call. "Where were you? I called 10 minutes ago and it went straight to voicemail." "Oh, let’s see, 10 minutes ago, oh, that’s right, I was outside, interacting with the real world. I think I may have even put my bare foot on a patch of grass. Sorry. My loss. That’s 10 minutes of chatting with you about where I am and why it’s so hard to hear that I’ll never get back."

I’ll admit that cell phones are a great convenience and can even be lifesavers at times. But so are fire extinguishers — until we empty them out, pee in them, and then use them to spray our sisters (I will not name names, but I’ve seen it happen). And the days of protective fathers giving their children phones as they head off to college with the loving admonition "Use this only for emergencies" are long gone. Now the raised, one-second-I-have-to-take-this-call index finger is the most ubiquitous hand gesture in the Western world. Almost nowhere are we free from its implicit belittlement. Suddenly, wherever we are, a better conversation is just around the corner, and "Oh, excuse me, I have to get this" is acceptable dinner conversation.

E-mail hasn’t fared much better in our hands. And I’m not even talking about spam. Sure, I’ve gotten e-mails with the subject line "Mom rape," but sadly that’s not the worst of it. I’ve had friends — people I know and trust — send me porn. More than once. Why? If you’re sitting down and about to e-mail your friend porn, maybe it’s time to step back and admit, "Hey, I don’t have anything pertinent to say at the moment." That’s okay. Silence is better than "You should try tossing off to this. I really enjoyed it." I mean, seriously. There are lines. Aren’t there?

Actually, no. No, there aren’t. And if you have any doubts, I refer you to www.bestiality.com. "Fine Bestiality" is the site’s tag line. Which comes with the ominous implication that there is, somewhere out there — perhaps at www.bestiality.org — unfine bestiality. Bestiality too repugnant for high-class bestiality aficionados to associate with. And the thing is, in seeing "www.bestiality.com" written on the page, I bet many people don’t even flinch. "Oh yeah, that’s nothing; I’ve seen worse on Fox." As the bit rates of data transmission rise, the bar of socially acceptable behavior falls. The explosion of the Internet has accomplished many things, and one of them is making the idea of sex with animals seem almost normal, a party trick. In the 1950s, people put lampshades on their head; in a few years, they’ll fuck a goat.

And what have we accomplished with all this rapid communication? What in the hell are we talking about that’s so important it can’t wait a few days? Our forefathers fired the shot heard ’round the world almost 100 years before the pony express existed. The ancients built the Seven Wonders of the World back when news traveled at the speed of a slow-moving river. Faster isn’t always better. It’s amazing what humanity is capable of with a little focus, drive, and a complete lack of OSHA standards. And every time I get an e-mail about erectile dysfunction, I think perhaps a few barriers to communication wouldn’t hurt.

But technology barrels forward. Now the Treo and its ilk are about to become the Next Big Thing. It’s only a matter of time before we all have a full wireless-communication center in our pockets at all times. I’m sure my grandchildren will one day look at these devices and wonder how we ever survived without the COM Chip implanted directly into our skulls. But as I walk down the street and see everyone around me engaged in some kind of electronic exchange of ideas (and I use that term loosely), I can’t help but think that maybe we, as a species, cannot handle unlimited anytime minutes. That we’ve rebuilt the Tower of Babel out of fiber-optic cables and Bluetooth technology, and in doing so have made it very clear why God got so pissed the first time around.

And then I wonder —

Oh, excuse me, I’ve got to take this call.

E-mails to Alan Olifson, at alan@olifson.com, will be read at the speed of a slow-moving river.