In Print and On the Air
Cell phone use is upending long-held social rules and creating a new culture, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Feb. 27. "I don't think there is a precedent for something that has spread so quickly around the world to so many individuals," said communication lecturer HOWARD RHEINGOLD. "It's an intimate technology that has the capability to reach into your intimate zone." According to a 2004 MIT survey, the cell phone topped the list of inventions people hated the most but can't live without. With technological advances and users' own creativity, the phone has evolved to do much more than offer instant communication. A recent Sprint survey revealed that two out of every three people used their cell phone backlight to look for something in the dark, mostly keyholes and walkways. "These technologies are interesting in the same way that a shoe can also be a hammer," said GEOFFREY NUNBERG, a consulting professor of linguistics. "There are incidental uses for cell phones that often can be something that changes it altogether." Another study by BBDO Worldwide, an advertising agency, reported that 31 percent of Americans said a cell phone revealed as much about a person as their car. "Cell phones are now just like your clothes," said communication Professor CLIFFORD NASS. "It's a very personalized thing."
Expensive treatments for heart attack patients don't always translate into longer life, the Los Angeles Times reported Feb. 27. Low-cost therapy—beta-blockers and aspirin—often work better than multiple specialists ordering duplicate tests. As health care spending rises, "we don't really know that the things we're spending money on are the things that are making us live longer," said ALAN GARBER, the Henry J. Kaiser Jr. Professor and director of the Center for Health Policy. It is widely accepted that technology such as stents and cardiac care units have contributed to heart attack survival in the last couple of decades. "But if you look at regions where people are treated more aggressively, have more procedures and doctors use more resources, is survival better?" Garber said. "The answer is no."
If Iraq devolves into civil war, the first question for the United States will be what to do with its 130,000 troops in the country, the New York Times reported Feb. 26. "We would probably have to get out of the way," said Hoover Institution Senior Fellow LARRY DIAMOND, who advised the U.S. occupation in Baghdad in 2004. "We wouldn't have nearly enough troops to quell the violence at that point. At a minimum, we'd have to pull back to certain military bases and try to keep working the politics."