Since the dawn of the cellphone in the ’80s, people have wondered how such technology could change society as a whole. Then they became smaller and easier to afford and people began wondering how such technology could affect the day-to-day lives of individual people.
And then in 2007, when Apple made the smartphone ubiquitous — Yes, I hear all you Blackberry stans crying out, but it was the iPhone that took the idea mainstream. Fight me. — people started asking how it would affect the children.
Of course, this is hardly a new phenomenon.
And it’s not a bad thing to worry about. A whole generation of young teens have now had a connected device in their orbit since the day they were born.
However, there’s rational concern for how this might change the lives of an entire generation and then there’s irrational, knee-jerk, freaking-the-eff-out over it.
Can you tell how I feel about bill S.212, which was proposed to the Vermont Senate by Democratic senator John Rodgers?
It’s really, really dumb, guys. Like, I’m not even mad about it, just tired.
The bill proposes that it should be illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to own or use a cellphone. It would be a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine or a year in jail, or both.
The bill states that cellphone use while driving is a leading cause of death for teenagers.
Other justifications include that cellphones can be used by teenagers to bully others, which can lead to suicides.
Oh, and it leads to terrorism and mass shootings:
“The Internet and social media, accessed primarily through cell phones, are used to radicalize and recruit terrorists, fascists, and other extremists. Cell phones have often been used by mass shooters of younger ages for research on previous shootings.”
Senator Rodgers would be shocked to look at my search history.
It’s a classic case of correlation being confused for causation.
Has there been an increase in the number of mass shootings and terrorism attacks since cellphones were invented in the ’80s? Sure. Maybe.
But it is a streeeeeeetch to think one has caused the other.
It sounds like a joke, and if you dig a bit farther, it turns out it kind of is.
Rodgers even told the Barre Montpelier Times Argus : “I have no delusions that it’s going to pass. I wouldn’t probably vote for it myself.”
So why did he go to the trouble of proposing it? The Second Amendment.
Recently, alongside upping the smoking age to 21, the state mandated that people under 21 are barred from buying a gun until they take a hunter safety course.
So teenagers can still buy guns, they just have to learn to use them safely first. Which seems like a fair compromise to me.
But not to Rodgers, who sees it as a slippery slope.
He strongly supports the Second Amendment and thinks that the Legislature is “bent on taking away our Second Amendment rights.”
Based on the “facts” presented within the bill, he says that cellphones are more dangerous than guns. So I guess the point he’s trying to make is that if cellphones are allowed, then guns should be too.
