HP
If there is one icon that marks our times, it is the hand phone. The Indonesian word for it is perfect: 'telepon genggam' or 'clutched phone'. We can clutch it any time, anywhere, but it, too, can hold us in its clutches any time, anywhere. Whenever someone sits alone in a corner, or together with a friend in a caf, on a crowded bus or attends a village meeting, out comes the HP from the pocket, eyes scan the messages on the narrow screen, and attention is momentarily diverted. More often than not, conversation stops.
These days, the first thing we see in the morning when we wake up, even before turning on the light, is not the newspaper, not the radio, not the TV. It is the hand phone: the Samsung, Nokia, Motorola...
February 9, 2016
If there is one icon that marks our times, it is the hand phone. The Indonesian word for it is perfect: 'telepon genggam' or 'clutched phone'. We can clutch it any time, anywhere, but it, too, can hold us in its clutches any time, anywhere. Whenever someone sits alone in a corner, or together with a friend in a caf, on a crowded bus or attends a village meeting, out comes the HP from the pocket, eyes scan the messages on the narrow screen, and attent
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