by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The majority of airlines do not permit the use of Netbooks, Laptops, cell phones, or e-readers on board of their aircraft after the gates are closed or before they are opened again.
So, if you want to work it's pen and paper and if you want to read on your flight it will have to be books printed on paper.
Had not Netbooks and e-readers, though, been advocated as so great for traveling and for working and reading on the move? Well, not when you are flying with the majority of the world's airlines and it does not look as if this may be changing any time soon.
Apparently the signals from all those devices, whether bluetooth enabled or not, and whether using wifi or not, be it PCs, cell phones, or e-readers, are able to interfere, and that detrimentally, with aircraft radios, navigational systems and the signals can even be heard in the pilot's headphones.
Those of you who will have, at any time, placed your cell phone near your computer's speaker will have noticed that, I am sure, especially when the phone is seeking a signal or when a call is made or received.
Do you still wonder as to why I am and remain an advocate of pen and paper and books printed on paper?
My paper notebook and my pen for working and my paperbacks for reading interfere with no communications or navigational system, or any other vital electronics, whether on a plane or elsewhere. I also do not fly, by the way. I haven't got any wings. It's for birds.
Joking aside, however, having just learned that those listed electronic devices cannot be used on board a plane during take off, landing and during flight, at least as far as most airlines are concerned, the only option is and remains paper and I feel vindicated not to own a PDA and an e-reader.
The great advantage of paper in the form of notebooks for writing and books for reading is that they do not require a battery or other power source and also can be dropped without serious damage, even from a relatively great height. And why would I want to be on the phone on a plane between continents?
We best rethink whether gadgets really are all what they are made out to be. I have used a hand-held computer, a PDA, some years ago until things went bad and I returned to pen and paper. And, I must say, I have never looked back at all.
And no, just to calm fears, paper production does not lead to the deforestation of the Amazon and such places. Tropical hardwoods, in fact most hardwoods, are totally unsuited for the production of paper.
© 2011
