One of the fascinating communication technologies that I saw in the United States, when I went to attend school in the mid 1970s, was the 800 toll free number, which was provided by AT&T. One could call anywhere in the US and Canada free of charge. One can make free calls to an airline, an insurance company and any other company providing any commercial services from any pay phone or private line no matter how long phone conversation. At that time, mobile phone was not even in the dictionary and not many homes around the world had even a landline phone connection.
Later, mobile phones were introduced and were basically meant for either the elite or top government officials. In Saudi Arabia, the initial cost of a mobile phone was about $13,000 and there were people who paid more than $40,000 for a number transfer. During those days, people used to recognize cars equipped with a mobile phone by the short black antenna on top of those vehicle. Of course we all knew well the elites in the neighborhood. That was way back in 1980.
Nowadays, mobile phones have become an important possession of every man, woman, young and old. In the good old days, the most important function of a mobile phone was to be able to communicate with others. Those mobile phones were not designed taking for selfies, installing twitter, WhatsApp, etc.
These days we witness launch of a more sophisticated mobile phone with added features almost on a quarterly basis. Interestingly, people buy those gadgets even if they cost up to $800. It is ironic that we often complain about electric bills (which is a necessity) but we never whine about our mobile phone bills without even thinking that most of the time we waste our money on unnecessary texting and chats.
Instead of reading books and newspapers, our youths spend more time glued to their mobile phones. Since I mentioned the word reading, let us talk about one of the largest bookstores in the Kingdom. Whenever one passes by that store, he would witness youths entering the outlets in droves.
It is a established fact that our youths don’t read books and Saudi public libraries usually wear a deserted look with precious books biting the dust. So, what do these youngsters do at that bookstore? These days, the crowd has increased. Why? It is all about a new cell phone launched by a prestigious company.
Each young man we see standing in the queue already posses at least one or two mobile phones. Interestingly, most buyers will never get to use 90 percent of all the functions that the new gadget offers. They just want to own this new cell phone to showoff. And I mean no offense to anyone. If somebody really needs such a gadget and can afford to buy it then it is fine but our youths should go back to books.
Our youths spend very little time reading books and novels. They reportedly waste their time trying to figure out new functions in the latest model of cell phones. I consider this a sheer waste of time. Many of our youngsters complain about being short of money but they leave no stone unturned to buy the latest gadgets the market has to offer them.
Interestingly, the general perception of the Saudi youths is that they are impatient as is evident from their driving habits on the streets. However, I don’t agree with that. They are patient enough to wait for hours in long queues to buy the mobile phone of their choice. This is a debate for some other time that most of them are not even well-versed with all the features of their existing mobile phones.
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