iBrats On a Plane
People love to slam today’s teens for their alleged sense of entitlement, but it appears that the late Steve Jobs has turned many iDevice-bearing adults into foot-stomping Veruca Salts performing a singalong of “I Want It Now!” I was a little astounded at the New York Times article about grownup iBrats complaining that airline pilots get to use iPads in the cockpit, but “tech savvy” fliers are still forced to turn off their gadgets ever so briefly during takeoff and landing.
Let’s unpack this: Apparently we still don’t know how dozens of passenger iDevices operating simultaneously might affect a plane’s communications system. In order to prevent catastrophes small (pesky audio interference) and large (a bloody f**king plane crash), the FAA has politely instated a policy that asks people to unplug during a few critical minutes. And passengers are griping because they aren’t allowed to check their Twitter feeds every moment of every day to avoid carnage. I guess fat people aren’t the worst aviation safety threat after all.