Et Tu, Nokia?

I’m funny when it comes to the seasons. As I write this we are two days into the month of July, not even a fortnight past the summer solstice and yet I am already thinking about autumn. Yes, technically the days are now getting shorter, however the thermometer here in St. Louis continues to register temperatures more akin to the threshold for the neutralization of salmonella than those that would inspire me to call up Autumn Serenade on the iPod (from the album “John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman” I should add). Perhaps it’s because the Canadian Football League season kicked off this week. Perhaps it’s because I received a fire pit from my wife and kids for Father’s Day and can’t wait until there is a justifiably cool evening to use it. Perhaps it’s because I’m just not a huge fan of summer. Whatever the reason, I am already thinking about autumn. And because I am thinking about autumn, it comes as no surprise whatsoever that I am also thinking that cell phones are a contributing factor to the present state of the U.S. economy.

Makes, sense, yes?

In the event I may have lost one or two of you, please allow me to explain. The advent of autumn marks that time of year when we all start receiving the chain email that talks about this year’s incoming college freshmen and all of the things that they take for granted that we are probably now just getting around to discovering how to use without instructions from a Complete Idiot’s Guide or a ten year old. Well, I really don’t want to talk about them today. I want to talk about this year’s incoming college seniors, those individuals who, for the most part, are going to be spending one final, glorious year enriching their minds and perhaps damaging their livers prior to walking straight off a plateau, Wile E. Coyote style, straight into the abyss that will be the 2010 employment market. All of the talk of “green shoots” and sustained stock market rallies which consumed much of the last six weeks seems to be receding once more in favor of reports of higher than anticipated jobless claims. We have yet to see the true fallout and residue from the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies. A number of banks once thought to be on the mend are once again starting to send out distress signals. We are not out of the woods and may actually still be working our way into the thick of it. In any event, even an imminent reversal to the present situation won’t gain traction in time to save the Class of 2010. Those poor neophytes are going to find themselves competing for entry level positions with the more experienced last-in/first-out layoff victims from other companies and the super-talented but non-capitalized folks who possess vastly superior skills but no access to startup cash. Anyone out there who wants to lament about how desperately they wish they were still 21 should catch an episode of CNBC’s “On the Money” (sadly demoted from a weeknight staple to a Saturday night dead-zone filler).

But let’s not focus so much on the future of the collegiate Class of 2010. Let’s take a look at where they’ve been. Assuming that the average college senior was born in 1987 or 1988, we should take a peek at the world in which they came to maturity. I am unscientifically pegging the year 1994 as the year in which cell phones became a mainstream staple. I say that for a couple of reasons. First, that’s the year I got my first cell phone, and second, that is when the (relatively) compact handhelds really started to outnumber their antennae’d brick predecessors. Don’t look for footnotes; I’m winging it. The advent of the truly portable, relatively affordable and unobtrusive cell phone changed our social dynamic in a radical fashion. I submit that Cell Phones 2.0 (we shall consider the black bag and car console mounted era Cell Phones 1.0) represented an untethering of American society to a degree not achieved since Henry Ford and his ilk made automobiles affordable and plentiful. In 1994 most of these present-day college seniors would have been in first grade. As these youngsters moved through the ranks of elementary school, cellular phone technology advanced at a disproportionately higher rate. By the time the kiddos had reached middle school, cell phone and electronic mail technologies had merged like some kind of high-tech Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, providing consumers with opportunities to communicate in oral or written form anywhere that they could get a signal. Once our soon-to-be job hunting friends were getting their driver’s licenses it was not uncommon for cell phones to provide a gateway to the internet. From this point forward, college graduates will be from generations who have never had a need to stay put for any reason.

Before I’m cast as some sort of a cave-dwelling Howard Cunningham, entirely content on maintaining a home-work-home routine (with an occasional Leopard Lodge meeting thrown in for good measure), I have no issue whatsoever with the liberation that cell phones have provided. They are an incredible convenience and have undoubtedly saved many lives in emergencies. And I will be the first to admit that it’s nice to be able to get out of the office without forgoing access to important calls, emails and documents. As a matter of fact, it is for that reason that I believe we are more productive workers.

So where’s the downside? Notwithstanding all of the blessings that cell phones have bestowed upon us, I have to wonder whether the convenience of a super-mobile society is creating more expense. If we no longer have a need to be at home in our free time, we are clearly spending more money. We are buying more gas; we are eating out with more frequency (that $12 grilled chicken Caesar from Il Bagno would cost you about $2 at home); and we are participating in a number of activities for which there are associated expenses. There is nothing inherently wrong with getting out of the house and being an active member of society, however, I often wonder whether we are becoming the victims of our own freedom, getting out and about a little too much – because we can – and spending more money in the process. While this increased consumerism has helped the economy in certain respects, it seems fairly clear that we were spending where we should have been saving and were overusing the plastic.

We are in our second summer of recession and much of the focus on the American consumer has been on the drastic change to spending behaviors. The personal saving rate, long in the negative range, is at a 15 year high of 6.9% as of May, 2009. The term “staycation” is now catalogued by Webster’s and is once again being tossed about the daily news like a beach ball is apparently being tossed around the backyard rather than the oceanfront this year. We are eating out less, going out less, finding more to do around the house (and, more to do to the house, as sales figures at places like Lowe’s would suggest). Perhaps it’s oversimplification, but I think the fact that people consider staying home the avenue to an improved domestic balance sheet is validation that we have been abusing our freedom of enhanced mobility. Just because we can go out doesn’t mean we have to go out. Now I'm sounding like every 16 year-old's father.

And the punch line to this post is that I started writing it on my laptop at a Starbucks in between emails and a couple of calls. I never said I wasn’t part of the problem . . .