This past Tuesday, I had the incredible pleasure of meeting Martin Cooper, the inventor of the cell phone. What started as an extra credit assignment miraculously turned into a resolution on my own inner turmoil regarding cell phone use.
I didn’t quite understand the gravity of the situation until Mr. Cooper walked into the room and everyone immediately began to applaud. I looked up from my cell phone to see the man who literally invented it. It's impossible to describe just how surreal it was. After a quick introduction from my journalism professor, who was responsible for convincing Mr. Cooper to come speak to us, he began to tell the tale of the cell phone.
Even the man himself was a little surreal. He captivated the room without demanding attention. It quickly became apparent to me that this man’s achievements have not gone to his head whatsoever. Here he was, giving a small presentation to a group of maybe a hundred people in the basement of the SDSU library. It was by no means a glamorous event, yet he didn’t seem to mind whatsoever.
He radiated an aura of pure positivity and humility and spoke with such optimism and excitement, it was like he invented the phone yesterday. He never overemphasized his achievement and laughed during the whole presentation.
He graciously and eloquently answered questions at the end, and then had the heart to stay behind and take dozens of selfies with people from the crowd, as well as answer any lingering questions. He greeted everyone with a smile and treated everyone like an equal.
Part of me expected him to hate selfie culture, as many people his age seem to, but he loved it. Halfway through his presentation on cellphones, mine of course died. I was able to rope my professor into taking a picture of Mr. Cooper and I because the thought of leaving that room without concrete proof that I had met him seemed preposterous.
I was overwhelmed and starstruck when I spoke to him, but he still smiled and gave me a handshake as I tried to explain my dilemma. He laughed and asked my name. That was the moment that the whole event became unreal.
He could have just let the picture happen and then sent me on my way so the next person could take their photo. Instead, he took the time to stop my nervous rant and ask my name, and thank me for coming today. We spoke briefly, mainly me gushing about what an honor it was to meet him and him brushing off my admiration with respect, saying the honor was all his. I left the event with a smile plastered on my face that didn’t disappear for at least an hour.
Prior to coming to this event, I was in the camp of pessimistic people who think my generation relies on their phones too much. It's incredibly annoying to me how many people stare at their phones instead of the world - yet I hypocritically find myself victim to its allure more often than not.
I pride myself on my ability to leave my cell phone in my dorm room and stay off it during class. Yet hearing Mr. Cooper emphasize how incredible it is that cell phone allows us to communicate more than ever before, I realized my entitlement was just plain outdated.
He stressed that the most important part of innovation is people. He helped create the cell phone because he wanted people to be able to communicate more freely. He admitted to being perplexed by some of the advancements in cell phones today and warned that phone manufacturers are not focused on the people anymore.
He was also humble enough to admit that he could see the negatives that cell phones today have accumulated, yet still believes the pros outway the cons.
So yes, maybe we all ignore each other nowadays in favor of looking at our phones. But aren't we still communicating? Unless you are playing Candy Crush, chances are you are on social media or texting someone. I guess we are just communicating less with strangers - yet we are forming stronger bonds with our actual peers.
Personally, I don't look at my phone when I’m with my friends. I don't know if I was just raised that way, or if, possibly, I actually want to be hanging out with those people. Phones give us the ability to communicate with literally anyone - so if you are hanging out with people you might rather not, of course, you are going to seek contact with someone else.
It’s the same way you ignore strangers waiting for their Starbucks or sitting next to you on the bus. Will I take offense if you pay attention to your phone more than me? Probably. But hearing Mr. Cooper talk about how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time with the cellphone, and how far we have to go, I am beginning to understand. Simply put, coming from someone with a pretty cynical view on cell phones, listening to a different perspective from such an optimistic man was enough to make me question everything.
My mom called me a dork for being so excited when I called to rant about the whole thing. She, like me, had never heard of Mr. Cooper before and was reluctant to believe I had met the inventor of the cell phone. Even after I convinced her, she was still perplexed by my reaction.
She said she expected it from me meeting my favorite celebrity or something. She went on to say she could even expect it from meeting Bill Gates. I had to stop her there to assure her that I would have reacted totally different had I met Bill Gates. Bill Gates, unlike Martin Cooper, is a household name.
In my personal opinion, Bill Gates has a pretty big head and would probably not be caught dead in the basement of San Diego State’s library talking to a bunch of students who are there for extra credit. But I guess that's the difference between a $600 million and a $91 billion net worth. Still, six hundred million isn’t a number to scoff at, yet there Mr. Cooper was, in his arguably hideous chevron shirt that he pulled off like a champ.
