Culture
Why the Last Unconnected Places Are Worth Keeping That Way
In praise of powering down.
By now – unless you've been, of all places, on an airplane – you've probably heard that the Federal Communications Commission plans to consider permitting full cell phone use in the skies. That would mean, yes, texting and surfing the web at 40,000 feet. It could also mean that fliers could field phone calls.
Not surprisingly, since word came out on Thursday, thousands of skeptical travelers have begun railing against the idea, mostly on the grounds that airplane travel is miserable enough without the intrusive chatter cell phones would bring. Here's how a petition to the White House opposed to the proposal sums up the objections: