California Quake Could Cripple Cell Service for Weeks
When we overly rely on technology like smartphones, we leave ourselves vulnerable.
I’m not going to write a long piece on this but I felt like this recent news article was a good example of how technology can be a double-edged sword. It can be great, when it works. But when it doesn’t, it often leaves us scratching our heads, clueless about what to do. Like if you’re on the way to the dentist and your GPS suddenly stops working. Where do you go? Where do you turn? How do you get there?
A new study says that a major earthquake in California would cripple cell service for days and even weeks. If you live in California, maybe you’re used to hearing about this type of journalistic fear-mongering. And maybe you’re tuning me out as feeding off the frenzy.
But what if? What if there was a big quake and you lived in LA and you lost service for weeks?
Or what if you lived in another part of the country and something different happened that killed cell service for days or weeks?
What would you do? Could you cope?
It’s easy to say you could handle it. But could you really? How reliant are you on your phone?
While this quake might be a hypothetical that never happens, it’s just another example of how overreliance on technology can leave us really exposed.
When we rely on a smartphone for directions, contact lists, communication methods like texting and email, and that’s suddenly not there any more, where would we turn?
My life is not built around my phone. So if I lost cell service, it literally wouldn’t affect any aspect of my life. I’m not bragging just using it as an example of what’s possible.
And while even the most smartphone-addicted person would eventually make it through a few weeks without service, they would go through some harsh withdrawal symptoms. I know because I experienced this multiple times when I got rid of my smartphone.
So, whether there’s an earthquake or not, or some other big event that takes down parts of the grid, and even if you decide to keep your smartphone, you should still ask yourself from time to time, what would I do for a few weeks if it suddenly didn’t work?