Anti-social Mobility

I have never liked mobile phones
Oh, they are fine for telling a friend
that you are coming to see them
whilst you are on public transport,
so that can prepare to meet you.

But with so many bells and whistles
they turn their users into teenagers
who live as if their whole world
has become their gaming arcade.

In the distant past penny arcades
were distinct physical spaces
which were often said to be
'Immoral and a waste of money'
by possessive and hard pressed parents,
unappreciative of how the children
improved their reflexes that way.

The digital arcade that is the Iphone
comes with parental approval,
night and day it lets parents know
where their offspring are
if not what they are doing.

Do the parents also approve
of the diminished attention span?
The displacement activity of having
to look at it and touch the phone so often?
Do they approve of the text speak
which does for written speech
what teenagers do when they mumble?
Where does the not wearing a watch
or knowing how to read a map leave people?

And none of the above even begins to explain
the one sided communications that is sexting....