Kapai: Let's dance, sing ... and think for ourselves

For some communication junkies, losing your cellphone or losing  coverage is like losing a leg.  Some see a cellphone as their security blanket and without it they are left feeling naked and exposed.
How has this happened and how much have we been tamed by cellphone companies  is a question I asked myself after the fallout from Telecom's frequency provider going down, leaving a lost generation of cellphone-dependent junkies.
When did we buy the belief that we have to have a cellphone  to communicate with our kids, each other and to the wider community at large? I guess for me it was almost two years ago when I stopped buying the bullshit and gave my phone the flick.
But whenever it was, we brought the message big time and now when the security cellphone blanket has been pulled from our palms by "unforeseen outage", and exposed our naked dependence as we are forced to face life all alone without a phone.
All across the lower South Island there is a growing group of closet Nigel No-mates who have been all outed by the outage, and forced to stare blankly into the palms of their hands. Depressed and lonely "have a chat" junkies are going through withdrawals, and  craving for a connection.
Textless thumbs from Twizel to Tekapo pining for that reassuring ring tone, telling them they have a message from a mate. A lost generation of cellphone sheep roaming around the South Island, like lost lambs looking for the tit of Telecom.
In a recent survey of school kids conducted by educationalists it was revealed that the average teenager logged in seven hours  a day on cellphones, computers and  television. Or, as they pointed out, the same hours  most people work.
No wonder it is becoming almost impossible to attract our kids' attention when they are consumed by this instant gratification of needing to know nothing right now. What is so important that it must be said instantly and cannot be said when you meet kanohi ki te kanohi (face to face)?
For my two bobs' worth of Bebo, blogging and thumb numbing texting it is all doing our kids' thinking for them seven hours a day. And it's making them lazy. And before we know it the blank stares into the palms of their hands as they wait for the next crucial communication will leave us all asking how the hell did we let this happen? I bet Dr Reynolds and his Telecom marketing team have the answer.
Telecom did us a favour by exposing our cellphone dependence.  And although their CEO, Dr Paul Reynolds, might be angry now, let's hope it will fire us all up to start downsizing our dependence on dialling and texting.
So what did we do to communicate back in the day before Bebo and blogging? As far back as 40,000 years ago the Aboriginals of Australia would go on a walkabout and have a talk about or a corroboree. While the American Indians would communicate with smoke signals when it was time for a bit of a powwow. Not surprisingly corroboree and powwow both mean to gather together and learn, as does wananga in Maori.
Maori living on top of Mauao would communicate by waving coloured flags, almost like sending semaphore and there could well be a few of those flying from the summit next Saturday on Waitangi Day. Maori would migrate from rohe to rohe communicating  through waiata, kapahaka and whai korero (songs, dancing and storytelling).
And then when my European ancestors showed up there was the written word where we learned by painting pictures in our own minds called reading.
As an educationalist who works with edu-taining our tamariki using a "locool" language I am convinced that dancing, storytelling, singing and reading are the teaching taiaha of today and tomorrow - as they were yesterday.  They allow us to paint our own pictures and be creative without being influenced by a bunch of touchtone teachers - who know four fifths about the realities of life.
When we read, dance and sing we are only limited by our imagination, and not by the marketing gurus who want to control our kids' thinking by doing it for them.
Maybe the gods of cyberspace who in this country are governed by Transmission Holdings have blocked the signals to teach us a lesson about taking the time to talk to each other kanohi te kanohi ? I hope so.
But for now as we face the first week of the new term of a new school year, perhaps we should put the priorities of a cellphone back where they belong and start learning to live life without them.
tommykapai@gmail.com