Keitai in the Mist
Every day I ride the trains of Tokyo and in that time I have been able to quietly observe the social behavior of these magnificent creatures. I think they have become comfortable with my being here and have actually accepted me as one of their own. Throughout this time I have been carefully observing a shift in the social interaction model of the young adult female of the species.
It is subtle shifts of this type that can change the dynamic of the social fabric and this one has that ability.
Whenever the female of the species finds herself in a solitary social situation, her reflexive instinct is to snap open her cell phone and either read her e-mail, answer a text message, or play a game. Many times they will snap open the cell phone and just pretend to be doing something which shows how ingrained this defensive behavior has become.
Standing on a train platform, in front of a store, in line at Starbucks, wherever they find themselves isolated from either the relative safety of other females or their mate, the cell phone comes out and is snapped open. When they are engrossed in their cell phone, they can avoid all other forms of social interaction and never have to make eye contact with anyone. The snapping open of the cell phone sends a definite message to anyone in the general vicinity not to engage. When the perceived or real threat is gone they will shut the phone but it will come out again in an instant should the threat return. Even if they are caught off guard and do not have time to open their phone before someone engages them, you will see them instinctively reach for the relative safety of their phone.
Of course this has also had an affect on the male of the species as well, to compensate for this their accouterments and plumage are becoming more and more outrageous and colorful in the hopes of prying the females eyes away from their phones. This is having very little effect; once a female is locked into her phone the chances of her looking up and making eye contact are almost impossible.
We worry that this is having a devastating effect on the population of these creatures and they may be doomed to extinction. We do however see encouraging signs that the males of the species are also evolving, more and more of them are starting to snap open cell phones as well and we only hope they are somehow using some primitive form of communication. According to studies the population has been in a steady decline and the birth rate has dropped to an all time low. This is due in part to the fact that females of the species are not taking mates till much later in life, if at all and they are also getting rid of mates that are undesirable which is a fairly recent social phenomenon.
We have not been able to scientifically prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt yet but we think that they may be signaling their availability to each other by the way they hold their phones or by the way they snap them open.
To test this hypothesis, we placed a dummy female on a train platform and from a blind behind the Ramen shop we were able robotically manipulate the opening and closing of a cell phone using various methods. Although we will need to commit many more hours of scientific study, the initial observations were encouraging based upon the how the phone was opened and how that triggered the mating instinct of males in the immediate vicinity. We can’t comment on them just yet but we hope to publish our findings in a major scientific journal soon.
Until then we will continue to observe these magnificent creatures with the hopes of one day unlocking their mysterious ways.
It is subtle shifts of this type that can change the dynamic of the social fabric and this one has that ability.
Whenever the female of the species finds herself in a solitary social situation, her reflexive instinct is to snap open her cell phone and either read her e-mail, answer a text message, or play a game. Many times they will snap open the cell phone and just pretend to be doing something which shows how ingrained this defensive behavior has become.
Standing on a train platform, in front of a store, in line at Starbucks, wherever they find themselves isolated from either the relative safety of other females or their mate, the cell phone comes out and is snapped open. When they are engrossed in their cell phone, they can avoid all other forms of social interaction and never have to make eye contact with anyone. The snapping open of the cell phone sends a definite message to anyone in the general vicinity not to engage. When the perceived or real threat is gone they will shut the phone but it will come out again in an instant should the threat return. Even if they are caught off guard and do not have time to open their phone before someone engages them, you will see them instinctively reach for the relative safety of their phone.
Of course this has also had an affect on the male of the species as well, to compensate for this their accouterments and plumage are becoming more and more outrageous and colorful in the hopes of prying the females eyes away from their phones. This is having very little effect; once a female is locked into her phone the chances of her looking up and making eye contact are almost impossible.
We worry that this is having a devastating effect on the population of these creatures and they may be doomed to extinction. We do however see encouraging signs that the males of the species are also evolving, more and more of them are starting to snap open cell phones as well and we only hope they are somehow using some primitive form of communication. According to studies the population has been in a steady decline and the birth rate has dropped to an all time low. This is due in part to the fact that females of the species are not taking mates till much later in life, if at all and they are also getting rid of mates that are undesirable which is a fairly recent social phenomenon.
We have not been able to scientifically prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt yet but we think that they may be signaling their availability to each other by the way they hold their phones or by the way they snap them open.
To test this hypothesis, we placed a dummy female on a train platform and from a blind behind the Ramen shop we were able robotically manipulate the opening and closing of a cell phone using various methods. Although we will need to commit many more hours of scientific study, the initial observations were encouraging based upon the how the phone was opened and how that triggered the mating instinct of males in the immediate vicinity. We can’t comment on them just yet but we hope to publish our findings in a major scientific journal soon.
Until then we will continue to observe these magnificent creatures with the hopes of one day unlocking their mysterious ways.
posted by Gas at 5:21 PM
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