Smart phones

Any human being with a phone in hand feels invincible, writes SUR columnist Manuel Vilas

Manuel Vilas

Malaga

Friday, 21 February 2025, 13:18

I see that all forms of crime are falling because of the mobile phone. This has been known for quite a few years now. The funny thing is that people still commit crimes with a phone in hand. Then along comes the Guardia Civil, or the FBI, or Interpol, or the Russians, with their sophisticated computer engineers, and they manage to recover conversations that Socrates and Plato once had.

Every human being sends dangerous WhatsApp messages. Two friends mock a third over WhatsApp. Infidelities are carried out over WhatsApp. Marriages fall apart. The number of marriages that mobile phones have destroyed is staggering. The number of infatuations that were nothing more than WhatsApp love affairs is just as staggering as the broken marriages. Any human being with a phone in hand feels invincible.

The trap of WhatsApp lies in emotional urgency, in that old "they're going to hear me now!" impulse. Only those who remain absolutely cold and detached when using WhatsApp will prevail. Those who avoid sending impulsive messages will survive. The best thing is not to have WhatsApp at all.

If I were a billionaire, the first thing I'd do is throw my phone out the window or hire the world's smartest computer engineer to invent a WhatsApp just for me - indecipherable, airtight, magical. If I were a billionaire, maybe I'd have a custom-made gold smartphone, but with no technology inside - just for show at fancy dinners and gatherings. A smartphone that was nothing more than a piece of jewellery. Or maybe one that only allowed analogue calls.

Civilisation believes it's impossible to live without an internet connection. Nobody leaves the house without their smartphone. Freelancers get job offers through WhatsApp. Without it, we'd starve. Murderers get caught because their phone was on at the crime scene. Any man or woman, young or old, if you take their phone away for a day, they panic or have an anxiety attack.

But a smartphone is not sex, nor food, nor the naked beauty of the seas, mountains, and stars.

The smartphone is comical, not tragic. Deep down, people are afraid of hearing another person's voice - that's why WhatsApp won. The only possible advantage of technological illiteracy is that you can go three or four days without knowing the nonsense being said in the world.

But if you don't hear that nonsense, how the hell do you even know you're alive?

Without WhatsApp, you're dead.

And with WhatsApp, you're a vampire.

Choose, if you can.

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