As I walk across the Drill Field every day, I am confronted with an eerily disturbing sight that at first seems emotionally endearing. Picture this: two college students deep in conversation hurriedly walking stride-in-stride toward their mutual destination. “What’s wrong with that?” you may ask.
The problem is that they are not talking to one another at all. Both have a cell phone plastered to the side of their faces and are yapping away to whomever is on the other end with total disregard for anyone or anything else around them.
Have cell phones become so entrenched in our everyday lives that we disregard the pleasure of personal interaction, opting instead for detached digital dialogues? Whatever happened to the days when only brain surgeons and drug dealers were important enough to need wireless communication devices?
Driving on campus, an already arduous task, has become even more dangerous because of the never-ending stream of multi-tasking drivers. In driver’s education, we were all taught to drive with hands at 10:00 and 2:00-or 8:00 and 4:00 if your car has an airbag. But these phone addicts drive with one hand at 12:00-or sometimes with their knee at 6:00-and use the remaining hand to hold the phone as they yack at the invisible entity whose voice is magically beamed in from space.
What’s worse is when they have the phone perched precariously between their ear and shoulder, contorting their neck into an almost impossible angle. Is it possible to drive safely when the entire world outside the vehicle looks like it’s been rotated 90 degrees?
These distracted drivers are so wrapped up in conversation that they overlook such driving basics as checking mirrors, watching street signs and lights and using blinkers. The general failure of drivers today to use their blinkers is a problem for another article, though.
It seems as if we just cannot wait to flip or slide open these devices of modern convenience. The second we walk out of our class, we grab our cell phones as if they were miniature oxygen inhalers and our survival depends on almost hourly consumption. We can apparently only go about an hour to an hour and a half without taking a drag.
Sure, sometimes we may need the phone for an emergency, but usually it’s the kind of useless banter that could be saved for a later time-a time when we’re not supposed to be paying attention to something around us. Can’t we wait until later to discuss the pros and cons of The Atkins Diet revolution or the fact that you got so inebriated last night that you made a half a dozen drunken phone calls, none of which you remember, to various people with whom you are only casually acquainted?
Some people claim that cell phones are their only link to the outside world. These people have gone so far as to have their home phone disconnected. They decide to get their Internet access and cable TV-two more electronic devices that have robbed us of the joys of personal interaction-from the same company. They choose to spend the time they have saved by having to pay one less bill to hold a two-hour cell phone conversation with a high school friend who is matriculating 500 miles away or surfing the net for only slightly airbrushed nude pictures of Anna Kournikova.
Now, I am all for modern conveniences. But aren’t cell phones and the Internet much more effective as useful tools? We should not think of these things as a way of life, since there is very little life involved in LCD screens and microchips.
Look around you. The real world is everywhere. There are people sitting next to you in The Union or the cafeteria. There are hundreds of students walking across the Drill Field. There are tall buildings, curious squirrels and beautiful landscaping everywhere. It would be a shame for you to go to school for four years and not notice some of these things because you were too wrapped up in the digital realm.
Nick Thompson is a senior communication major. He can be reached at [email protected].