Why your child’s phone number is higher than their IQ
by Mad Dog

    A survey commissioned by the Japanese telephone company NTT DoCoMo (motto: “Sure our name sounds like the chorus to an insipid ‘50s rock song, but we have more money than you so quit laughing”) found that in Japan, 68 percent of the children who owned a cell phone got bad grades. Meanwhile, 49 percent of those without phones got good grades. This is quite puzzling since it adds up to 117 percent. At least it does when I use the calculator function of my cell phone. Right, as if I can figure out how to access it.

    The reason for this—mobile phone-equipped kids doing badly, not my inability to figure out my phone’s functions—could be that children are too busy talking to do their homework. Or maybe they were just too busy talking to tell the truth to the pollsters. Either way, it’s cause for alarm. Provided, of course, your cell phone has a built-in alarm.

    There’s no question kids are into their cell phones. That same survey showed that 22 percent of Japanese children talk on their phone 10 times a day, 45 percent send 10 or more text messages a day, and none of them want to grow up to be prime minister because they want a career that lasts longer than two months.

    It’s gotten so bad that a sociologist there has written a book called (True Fact Alert!) The Superficial Social Life of Japan’s Mobile Phone Addicts. He says that if this trend keeps up, superficial conversation will be the rule and people will become incapable of forming and maintaining proper relationships. It’s times like this I feel proud to be ahead of the curve.

    This really is a potential problem since cell phones—known as mobile, or hand phones in the rest of the world—are taking over. In Japan, half the high school students have them. In Italy and Finland there are more cell phones than regular ones. In fact, Finland is the world’s cell phone champ, with 73 percent of the men, women, and children owning one. Of course what else do they have to do during the long cold winters other than huddle around their cell phones for warmth and try not to think about how nice that buff reindeer’s starting to look?

    Actually, the Finns may be buying cell phones because they like to be at the top of lists. They have the highest divorce rate in the world (58 percent of all marriages end in divorce), one of the highest alcoholism rates (one in ten drinks too much), and they’re ranked number two in suicides per capita. They also drink the most coffee—25.8 pounds per person per year. This goes a long way towards explaining their need for all those cell phones: they use the coffee to keep them awake so they can drink more, talk about their pending divorce, and decide which method of suicide to use.

    Cell phones can be hazardous to adults as well as children, especially if you’re on a Saudi Arabian airplane. While most of us only have to worry about driving into a tree while talking, an army captain who was chatting on his cell phone during takeoff was arrested and got 70 lashes for the offense. He also got 20 lashes for not putting his tray table in the upright and locked position, eight for not lowering the shade when they showed the only Seinfeld episode the airline owns, and six lashes for assaulting a flight attendant with a deadly weapon—the brownie that came with dinner.

    A company there has started a service so every time you light up a cigarette your phone squirts it with water. Just kidding. Actually it squirts melted Toblerone chocolate. With almonds. Just kidding again. What it really does is send a text message to help distract you whenever you crave a cigarette. Things like “Divert your thoughts instead of smoking”, “Do you really want breath like a gutter, lungs like a coal miner, and teeth the color of baby’s first summer?”, and “Light up and you’ll never see your dog again.”

    How they know when you crave a cigarette is their trade secret, but I suspect it has something to do with the camera embedded in your cell phone. You know, the one Interpol requires. Or maybe it’s the one the CIA implanted in your brain during the last dentist’s visit. I’m not certain but I’ll let you know later when I take off this aluminum foil helmet and check.

    So does all this mean the future of the world lies in cell phone addicted children who can’t form decent relationships, have incredible urges to move to Finland, and try to use their phone to wean themselves off the phone? Not necessarily.

    You can fight back by using the Mozart Effect. Just set your child’s cell phone to play Mozart when it rings. After all, if you think they grew smarter when you watched Amadeus on video while they were still in the womb then anything’s possible. Besides, if nothing else it will make them tell their friends not to call. Even though Mozart goes by only one name, they know he’s not in the same CD rack as Britney, Madonna, and Barney and they’ll do anything to stop hearing that godawful music. Hey, it’s for their own good.   

©2001 Mad Dog Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country. Read them while talking on your cell phone.