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A Tale of Two Cell Phones

Mar 10th, 2008 • Posted in: Commentary

by Rushworth M. Kidder

This is a tale of two cell phones. It is, to paraphrase Charles Dickens, a story of the best of technologies and the worst of technologies. It is about one cell phone that saved a life and another that took life away. And in true Dickensian fashion, it raises profound social and ethical questions about what it means to be modern — and whether technology really is morally neutral.

The tale starts in the leafy summer of New York’s Finger Lakes region, with five teenage girls celebrating their graduation last June from Fairport High School, an Erie Canal town near Rochester. Driving to a lakeside cottage owned by the parents of one girl, Bailey Goodman, they were killed when the SUV she was driving veered into an oncoming tractor-trailer. According to police records, her cell phone had been used at 10:05 P.M. to send a text message to a friend in another town, who replied at 10:06. The first report of the accident — a call to 911 from one of her friends in the car behind — came in at 10:07.

Autopsies have ruled out alcohol or drugs as a factor in the crash, though sheer inexperience may have contributed: Goodman was driving on a junior license that prohibited her from driving after 9:00 P.M. But was she also driving while texting — a phenomenon now known as DWT? Her phone was never found. “We will never be able to clearly state that she was the one that was doing any text messages,” said a police spokesman.

But text messaging is enormously popular — so much so that state legislatures are considering following Washington State and New Jersey in outlawing DWT. Assessing current research on the topic in its January 2008 issue, State Legislatures Magazine reports that an estimated 73 percent of cell-phone subscribers use them while driving, and that a recent Zogby poll “found that 66 percent of drivers between the ages of 18 and 24 confess that they drive-while-texting.” The magazine also reports that an estimated 80 percent of motor vehicle crashes “involve some form of driver inattention” such as that caused by DWT.

Not surprisingly, proponents of tougher DWT restrictions are citing the Fairport case as casting more than a reasonable doubt on the notion that texting is a silly but inevitable driving behavior among the young. This case also strengthens those who think that cell-phone technology is not morally neutral but a clear moral hazard, bringing with it severe damage to individuals and society.

But listen to the second tale. It unfolded last month in Fargo, North Dakota, following a cold snap that registered minus 38 degrees Fahrenheit without counting the wind chill. On that bitterly cold Sunday afternoon, Terry Higdem began drinking heavily. Then he began threatening his former girlfriend with death. “I’m taking you [expletive deleted] hostage,” he told her as she drove him to a local Holiday Inn, according to a report in the Fargo Forum. “Do you wanna die tonight, ‘cuz I want to die.”

Newspaper reporters can’t usually quote exactly what was said in the privacy of a vehicle. This time was different. At 9:34 that night, police dispatchers got a curious cell-phone call. Asking questions, they got no response. But they could hear an alarming conversation going on. Not only had Higdem’s 21-year-old hostage surreptitiously dialed 911 on a phone she kept out of sight, but she continued to ask him where he wanted her to go. She also began commenting on local landmarks she was passing. Police officers quickly caught on, followed her clues, spotted the car within 15 minutes of her call, and arrested Higdem without incident — with the phone that very possibly saved her life still transmitting the entire proceeding.

These are grisly and Dickensian tales, to be sure. But they illustrate the downside and the upside of cell-phone technology. Who can deny the power of this technology to foment disaster at Fairport and deliverance at Fargo? Does that mean that, on average, cell-phone technology is morally neutral? Whatever your answer, one thing seems clear: The technology is widespread, irreversible, and transformative. Where, these days, is a teen that doesn’t text — or a driver unaware that cell phones are wise security measures?

How, then, should we respond to this high-contrast picture? Maybe an answer lies in another technology at the heart of both these tales: the automobile. It too is wildly popular, amazingly liberating, and evidently deadly. We don’t condemn its use, but we are unflinching in our demand that nobody gets to use it without first undergoing serious training.

But where, these days, is the education about how to use the cell phone? We may not need to issue cell-phone licenses, but can we afford not to spend time — in schools, at home, at work, and in the media — talking with teens about how Bailey Goodman deserved to live and Terry Higdem deserved to get caught? Can we afford not to train a generation to deal better with the best and worst of cell phones?