Tyranny of the Screens By Grant Turner
Last Fall during a golf date with my friend Mitzi, we ran into Andy Rooney on the 19th hole of a local country club. Of course I recognized him from his decades on “60 Minutes”. He's not as young as he looks on TV. After I fetched napkins and helped him sop-up a beer knocked over by his left eyebrow, Mr. Rooney and I started talking. Meanwhile, Mitzi sat at the table with us and checked her messages. During the brief encounter with Andy Rooney, he glanced over at Mitzi and said to me quietly: “I have this idea. More of an insight, really. It's about screens. They're not taking over. The have taken over. And I just don't see how they can be resisted. There is little hope. We love our screens. They come in any size. And they usually have something irresistible for us to see. Must see, many times, in order to function in society. Screens have a way of taking charge.” He had me spellbound, this sage of the screen. He may have looked older than he did on TV but he sounded the same. I like to think I was fully appreciating every moment. Mitzi, sitting next to me, wanted to listen and give her full attention to this man that I was acting so impressed by, but she just couldn't. The techno-gods had made it impossible for her to choose actual human contact over the type of secondary human contact available through a screen. Rooney continued: “ I see people now in public places fiddling incessantly with their screens. The whole world seems preoccupied with them. We can't look away from all the screens. They're everywhere. I don't like that.” “They are so addictive,” I added. Yes, Rooney nodded. “You know what? You know what I think it is?” I heard myself say. “Screens are the new cigarettes.” “You're right.” Rooney said, after a pause, looking astonished. “That's it. When smoking was outlawed, the screens moved in, didn't they?” He also told me about his hip, something about his urine flow, then the humous sage of the TV tube was whisked away from us. I liked Andy Rooney. The next Sunday I started watching “60 Minutes” again to see if he Rooney used my idea. Nothing yet. Since then we've seen Egyptians take to the streets in full revolt and overthrow their government. A sudden mass uprising they say was driven by the internet and social media—the screens. Even cigarettes can't do that. By the way, Mitzi and I have stopped dating until she returns my calls. After pressuring her into putting down her iPhone and being less distracted, she wrecked her car and blamed me. Mitzi actually said, “I'm not used to driving without being distracted!” Grant Turner is a professional stand-up comedian. He appears as Ricky Mokel in One The Show, at the Alabama Theatre in North Myrtle Beach, SC. For family friendly comedy DVDs and tapes go to: www. rickymokel.com. You can also reach Grant via email: grant@thecarolinastoday.com
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