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On 9/11 people were making cell phone calls from the airplanes. Unfortunetly for many folks, the use of cell phones did not cause those planes to fall from the sky and prevent them from hitting their intended targets. The planes kept on flying while many passangers made very sad last calls home.
I am sorry, but there is more and more evidence that the use of electronic devices is not dangerous when flying commercial planes.
WiFi is now offered on planes and many passangers are using it. We have yet to hear of a plane crashing because of the use of WiFi inflight.
My point? It is really hard for me to take a rule seriously when there is more and more mounting evidence that there is no danger from using these devices. I turn off my cell phone and the 3G/Wifi on my Kindle while flying. The amount of electricity used to turn the page on my e-ink reader is miniscule, which is one reason why the batteries last so bloody long on the thing.
Point me to one case where a plane crashed because a planeful of people continued to listen to their IPods, use their noise reduction head sets, and read on their e-readers, netbooks, or tablets.
You can't.
The truth is that they want devices off so that people are paying attention during take off and landing because those are the most dangerous time in flight. So when you tell the people with the big honking paper backs to put those away, I will put away my book. Until then, I will put away my e-reader until the Flight Attendents are seated and then pull out my book and read.
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