Regaining the connection lost through a cell phone

By Kandace Arens

Every morning, your cell phone alarm beeps at you from where it is lovingly placed every night under your pillow. After a quick shower, you throw some clothes on and text your friend down the hall to tell her you're ready for breakfast. Between classes, you whip out your phone to give your significant other a quick call -- after all, you haven't talked to them all day. When classes start getting a little dull (or the person that's texting you has the latest gossip), you pull out your phone yet again, sending messages to your friends across campus. That night, while going out, you text your friend constantly -- who happens to be across the room from you.

Does anyone else see anything wrong with this picture?

Now, don't get me wrong. You need your cell phone. I know. It is your lifeline, your hookup for parties, the way to find who's hanging out or a way of just staying in touch. Trust me, I understand.

In fact, it is ironic that I'm the person who is complaining about this. As my close friends and relatives know, it's impossible to separate me from my phone. That little black Samsung and I are probably closer than most married couples.

Ever since I started college, my best friend from high school and I have pretty much been in constant contact. Even my mom has jumped on the texting train, sending me messages a little more often than I want her to.

Texting in class? Please, that isn't even a question of "if" anymore, it's more like "how often." And I know I've been guilty more than once of texting someone that is within walking distance of me -- if not in the same room.

Is everyone like this? I wondered, so I tried a little experiment.

Walking to my various classrooms this afternoon, I started paying a lot more attention to the amount of people using their phones.

People chatted on their way to class, attempted to text and narrowly avoided running into buildings and blatantly ignored their companions while they checked their voicemail. Of the four times I walked back to my dorm today, two of them involved someone around me either answering their cell phone or texting. There was even one woman in the lunch line who was on the phone the entire time she was ordering and receiving her food.

In our world of instant communication, it has become perfectly acceptable to whip out your ringing cell and answer it during the middle of a conversation. The idea that we would actually shut off our phones (and that means put it on vibrate, right?) to attend a movie, a play or listen to a speaker is a completely foreign one. Just in the context of writing this article, I've picked up my phone to send and receive text messages more times than was necessary (and you wonder why it takes so long to write those essays).

We're losing something. And I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times before, but it is true. There's a connection that takes place while sitting and talking to someone in person that a 160-character-count text cannot replace. If we pull out our phones whenever we feel the slightest bit lonely or the slightest bit bored, we're missing out on something. We alienate ourselves from the world around us.

Here is my proposition.

I'm not going to suggest something as radical as turning off your cell phone all day -- I know I couldn't do that, nor would I want to. No, what I suggest is just to notice how much you depend on your phone.

What if instead of texting before class you took the opportunity to meet someone new and say good morning? What if the woman standing in line had recognized the hard work that the workers at Mission Bakery put into their job instead of just glossing over their existence?

What if we needed our phones less because we connected with each other more?

That, I think, we can accomplish.

Kandace Arens is a freshman theatre arts major.