You know how it is, you are walking along the sidewalk and someone near you starts talking. You turn around thinking they are talking to you, but they are not.
And then they take a puff of a cigarette.
It’s not an uncommon assumption to think they are going mad.
But the thing is, if you take a closer look you notice they have a Bluetooth device in their ear and they are really talking to someone out there in cyberspace.
Or for the uninitiated, they’re talking on their mobile phone.
Not that many years ago, men in white suits would be collecting these people and taking them to an asylum typically called Bellevue. It was the stuff of 1950’s horror films. You really didn’t want to be caught talking to yourself.
It, of course, has a number of symptoms, this condition we’ll call cybersickness.
Like, for instance, wandering aimlessly. Or bumping into people. Or walking in front of cars on the street. Or falling off the edges of sidewalks, which can result in very, very bad injuries.
You could be forgiven for thinking these people are hearing voices in their heads telling them what to do.
But, as a worst-case scenario, we could say we have just created a viable excuse for these people.
I suppose it’s better than locking them up because, at the end of the day, our jails would be full to overflowing.
One thing is for certain, I think a lot of them are already living in their own world, oblivious to everyone and everything about them.
Now, as for using phones in cars, just don’t get me started.
