PAY ATTENTION!

Cell phones are ubiquetious these days and I resisted getting a cell phone as long as I could because I found myself so often annoyed while commuting by those incessant riders who would loudly proclaim, “I’M ON THE TRAIN...”

Still, finally having given in I must admit to finding the cell phone a handy tool to have and I wouldn’t want to relinquish the device.

Moderation is the key in all things though and cell phones illustrate the hazards of over indulging like no other aspect of modern life. The compulsion to be constantly connected means a person’s focus is too readily diverted from the task at hand much to everyone’s peril as this article so aptly demonstrates:

At Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, Marc Felberbaum, an emergency room doctor, said he had been seeing more of this over the past year. He recalled in particular one patient who had tripped on a curb while texting, not only breaking his wrist but losing grasp of his cellphone, whereupon it was crushed by an oncoming car. (And yes, it was with some satisfaction that the doctor recounted the last part of this cautionary tale.)