The moment the constant begging and pleading of preteen boys and girls led their parents to succumb to buying them their first of many cell phones, the Cellular Generation was born. Most of us have not experienced life beyond the eighth grade without a cell phone. Of course they were slightly larger then; we had a colorful phone cover for every day of the week and ring styles were limited to three variations of the same sound, but they were, nevertheless, a part of our lives. Today we opt for the sleekest and smallest of the latest gadgets with ringtones as clear as songs on the radio. No longer are our BlackBerrys, iPhones and Motorola Razrs a part of our lives – they consume them. What does this say about our generation? Do these technological toys help keep our lives under control or do they control us?The first cellular phones, relatively equal in size and weight to bricks, enabled us to wirelessly communicate with anyone from practically anywhere. It was a remarkable innovation that made life a little easier. Or did it? Just as drug addicts and alcoholics quickly become tolerant of their substance of choice, the cell phone user acquires a similar tolerance. We demand more features, more ringtones, more options. Now in the palm of your hand you can have the Internet, TV, videos, music, notepads, a calendar and even birthday lists. Your whole life can fit into an object made of plastic and metal the size of a deck of cards. You can check e-mail at a baseball game, instant message your friends during class and be automatically reminded to call your mom on her birthday – how thoughtful that you remembered! These endless features appear to make life easier to better connect us, make us more efficient and more productive. However, life isn’t getting any easier. The constant multi-tasking and rush to get to the point creates unnecessary stress and pressure. With 24/7 access to the Internet and the ability to reach or be reached at any time, we never “turn off.” Believe it or not, the world will still turn if we turn off our phones during a movie or don’t reply to an e-mail in the middle of dinner. Not only does our addiction to our cell phones make us neurotic and unable to relax, it causes us to miss out on, well, life. With our ears glued to the receiver, our fingers feverishly racing across minuscule keyboards, and our eyes scanning the Web instead of paying attention during class, we deprive ourselves of everything around us. This tool intended to connect people to one another desolately creates a vast separation. A room may be full of people who are nonetheless absent from each other as they carry on one-sided conversations via text, e-mail or phone. Manners, as well as relationships, have disappeared. The acronym “PDA” is beginning to be recognized more frequently as a personal digital assistant than public display of affection. I’m certainly glad technology has brought us all so close together. Our cell phones have become an extension of our bodies, always connected to us. Even in complete silence, who hasn’t sworn they heard their ringtone going off or felt a phantom vibration in their pocket or purse? Worse yet, in class we hear what seems like a cow dying but is actually just a cell phone vibrating against a book. Every girl leans down and checks her bag, the boys pull their phones out of their backpacks, flip them open or unlock the keypad and check to see if he or she was the lucky one to receive a message so vitally important that it just couldn’t wait to be told in 10 minutes, when class ends. Communications professor Dan Schill laughed as he thought of his 8 a.m. Free Speech class. “The class gets out at 9:20 and every student pulls out their phone as soon as I stop talking. What do you possibly have to say that is so important at 9 a.m.!” he exclaimed. Ridiculous but true, we have become so dependent on technology that we now show the classic symptoms of addicts. Social interaction becomes disrupted, we become prone to extreme hyperactivity and we have difficulty paying attention. We crave our phones or the Internet when we are without them. When a broken phone left SMU freshman John Steitz in withdrawal for two weeks, he was first frustrated but learned to actually appreciate the disconnect. “I couldn’t get ahold of anyone and no one could get ahold of me. At first it was annoying but then I realized it was kinda nice not to have a phone for a while.” Apparently there may be hope for all of us to recover. Being a member of this Cellular Generation, an age in which we simply do not know how to function without a PDA glued to our hands, I have to admit I have a problem too. My name is Sarah Swanson and I am a cellphoneaholic. I confess, I text under my desk during class, I complain to my mom while I walk to the library and I talk to invisible companions on my cell phone while I drink my morning coffee. I Facebook when I get stuck or bored typing a paper – in fact, I’ve already checked it twice while writing this! I, too, feel the need to check my e-mail or my Facebook just to get my quick fix. I am a junkie. But there is still hope. If you honestly cannot turn off your phone during dinner with friends, put it on silent and I dare you not to check it until you leave the restaurant. Enjoy the food, the setting and, most of all, your companions. Nothing is as important as human connection. Believe it or not everything else can – and will – wait.
About the writer:Sarah Swanson is a sophomore English major. She can be reached at [email protected].
