Cell Inflicted

Watch any movie or television show as recent as the mid 1990s, and you might see a very different cell phone from the ones we use today. In an alternate ending on the DVD of the mediocre movie Threesome, Stephen Baldwin whips out a mobile phone so oversized and clunky, I half expected him to be calling for reinforcements at Normandy. Cell phones get smaller and more common as time goes by. Even though I've had one of my own for over a year, I'm still getting used to it and learning new things. Earlier this week a friend sent me a text message, and I was surprised to learn my phone HAD the ability to receive text messages, let alone that I could reply to her. Keeping the phone ON is another practice I'm working on. Many of my friends get annoyed that I leave it off, while I share my parents' fear of killing the battery. Slowly I've been testing the limits, and realizing how long I can leave it on before it needs to be recharged. Of course this leads to the opposite extreme of forgetting its on. A few weeks ago on a date, I chuckled at a commercial before a movie in which scientists in protective suits working with a dangerous virus are disrupted when someone's cell phone goes off. I've seen similar reminders many times at the movies, but this was the first one that gave me pause and made me think, “Wait a minute...MY phone is still on!”

While I'm still a cell phone newbie, kids have been way ahead of me for years. I remember about eight years ago after a movie taking my girlfriend at the time to a coffee shop, where we were amused by some teenage girls on a cell phone. “Tell mommy we're gettin' COFFEE and to pick us up LATER!” They couldn't have been older than 14 or 15. As bad as that was, entering church tonight my mom and I had to navigate through a trio of even younger girls, and one who was about 11 was talking on a cell phone while her sister held the door open and urged her to hurry up and finish the conversation. We made our way inside where the priest was saying the opening prayers and blessing the Palms. Suddenly, the ring of a phone echoed in the church and was quickly silenced. The priest paused, looking around with a bemused expression, before continuing. The ringing suddenly resumed and more heads turned. I fully expected it to be the young girl we'd seen earlier, but instead a middle-aged woman got up and walked to the back of the church, answering the call before she got outside. As she exited and her conversation faded, we were able to resume the mass.

Cell phones are good to have, and I'm glad I'm no longer a slave to carrying quarters and hoping for a nearby payphone, should I have an emergency while driving. It's a good way for parents to keep tabs on their kids too, although I think a lot of children may abuse it and turn a method of important communication into another tool of over-socializing. And while it's good to be reached at any time should there be an emergency, we all have times when we don't want to be available, alone time to decompress after a long day. Even off, my phone finds ways of calling attention to me when I don't want any. Three times this week I've set off alarms in various stores both entering and exiting, and someone suggested that cell phones sometimes cause that. I was doubtful since the phone wasn't even on, but when it happened again while shopping tonight I later asked my mom and she reported encountering the same experience recently. I know her phone is never on, though she carries it at all times, but it's the only common factor. Whether coordinating a blind date, locating friends on an outing, or getting a last minute update about groceries or party supplies while shopping, cell phones allow us to accomplish many things we might not have been able to a decade ago. There are ups and downs with any technological advance, and the very way in which we live our lives changes so much, it becomes hard to imagine the way things were before.