Last night, I started reading Stephen King’s new novel, Cell. I like the premise. People who use cell phones are often annoying. I read that the reason why they’re annoying is that their conversations are harder to tune out as background noise. Apparently, we can more easily tune out conversations in our environments if we hear all the participants in them. If we hear only one end of a conversation, our brain pays more attention, since it’s trying to make meaning from the fragments. I don’t yet own a cell phone. My mother tells me that cops get testicular cancer at a much higher rate than the average, due to their cell phones being so close to their bodies so much of the time. Another reason not to like cell phones is that cell phone towers are among the top five killers of endangered and threatened species of bird.

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