There’s an app for that

By Ally Bordas
For the Daily Titan (re-posted here without permission)
Published: December 08, 2010 Cell phones have changed our lives and destroyed them at the same time.

I do not know how many more times I will be able to endure wandering around campus watching hundreds of students and faculty alike making public love to their cell phone. It is distressing, and most of all uninspiring.

There used to be a time when cell phones were a coveted item to own. My favorite times in high school were the class periods when someone’s phone would randomly begin to vibrate aor ring and everyone in the class would make ridiculously loud distractions in order to save the culprit from getting sent to the deans office.

Fake coughs, pounding on desks and turret-like shouts were all tactics used by fellow students in order to save the owner from embarrassment and a for sure grounding. Ah man, the good ole’ days.

Now as I sit in class I notice that at least 90 percent of students have their cell phones visible during class and at least 75 percent of those students will check their phones multiple times. And let’s not forget the professors, who also either have their phones out on the desk and check it throughout class time.

I am mentally sick because of how consumed we all are by technology. What happened to mail, you know, being delivered and put in our mailboxes? Or documentaries, playing outside, long grungy hair and the phones that actually have cords? Am I just wishing that we could all go back and live in the ‘70s? Maybe. But I think my point is more valid than that.

Amy Gahran, specialist for CNN, wrote an article discussing how cell phones have changed our lives. Her article starts out very promising, but then takes a turn for the worst as she begins making love to technology as well.

“Cell phones provide vital services and human connections. They connect people in dire need with services that can change (or save) their lives and offer new hope, even through simple broadcast text messages,” Gahran said.

This is what Gahran was inspired to write after she witnessed a supposed homeless person on the bus whip out a cell phone.

Gahran goes on to advocate for everyone to purchase smartphones, “smartphones do matter. I own a smartphone, and I use it nearly constantly. (Over the summer I ditched my iPhone in favor of the Droid Incredible.)”

Cell phones do not really connect us at all! Yes we can instantly get in contact with each other, check e-mails and get news reports but is that really a human connection? They make us scared to interact with one another, invade our minds and implant a brand new slang language into our vocabulary that is less than impressive.

Now when I text someone and do not get a response they can make up so many excuses: my phone is broken, I lost my phone, I didn’t get your text I swear… back in the day there were no such excuses! You had to get creative to avoid people and almost always had to respond to someone or they would just show up on your doorstep.

I do not want a smartphone. I am not tempted in the slightest to go trade in my 1990s brick of a cell phone for a smartphone. Smartphones are going to pull a Transformers 2 and change into super smart robots that will take over the world! So much for getting prepared for when zombies attack, I am petrified of a technology apocalypse.

OK, I will not be completely ignorant and at least acknowledge the fact that with so many improvements in technology a lot of good has become of it. I admit it. But the question I have is when is it going to stop? When is it going to be enough?

Globalization has spurred so much international competition between countries that brilliant minds of our society are supercharged into wanting to discover the next big thing. But are these “next big things” causing an outbreak of laziness? Have we become so dependent on technology to do all of our work for us that we would not know how to survive in the world without it?

I still crave stimulating conversations and debates that get me riled up. I do not care about “news” updates on way too naive Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus on a stripper pole, the underage annoyance known as Bieber fever, Lady Gag-me, sexually charged dead vampires or where in the world Lindsay Lohan is. I want unbiased news no matter how hard that may be for people to understand. Wake up! Or the puppeteer (AKA technology corporations) will permanently own you.