Chelsea Langevin

As Americans, we are bred to cherish our independence, a value that has cultivated our profound sense of individualism and our perception that only we can control ourselves.
Yet we go about our daily lives unaware that a tiny, high-tech gadget routinely commands us — our cell phones.
Imagine a world without them. Better yet, allow me to describe the peaceful existence to you. Last semester while studying abroad in Costa Rica, I was stranded without my cell phone for four months. At first, I panicked. How was I supposed to call my family at a moment’s notice for my nervous breakdowns? How would I keep in touch with them throughout the day without my precious text messaging?
With limited access to my host family’s phone, I was forced to carefully coordinate meetings with my friends abroad, confirming the specific time and place we would meet. To keep in touch with my family, I gave them time blocks to call, indicating when I would be at my host family’s house.
But I loved every minute of it. I was not held accountable to anyone. If I wasn’t at my host family’s house, I could not be contacted, and that was a beautiful feeling. Whatever someone had to say to me would just have to wait.
During this cell-phone fast, I quickly realized how utterly dependent I am on my phone. I expect my phone to always be at my side so I can pull it out during awkward or tense conversations and pretend I am checking something important — like a missed call (oh my!). I need it to spend 20 seconds of my life typing out a 100-character message, one that would have been 1,000 times more effective if I were to just say it in person. I use it as a crutch to call anyone at any time just to deliver the latest gossip or divulge my feelings.
We expect our cell phones to be by us at all times, and others assume we abide by this rule. In the social realm we are always technologically plugged in. No excuses. No hiding. Sure, we can screen our calls, but they will learn the truth later and accuse you of being a bad person. Or callers will purposely avoid the instant, over-the-phone exchange and chat through text message instead.
While we’re on the subject of text messaging, I feel obligated to discuss text messaging etiquette. It is not polite to send text messages on your phone while conversing with or in the presence of an actual human being. Chances are the person who sent you the message chose to do so because it wasn’t urgent anyway, so there’s no need to frantically dig through your purse or your pockets to answer the message. It’s also impolite to deliberately hide your phone from people while you’re typing. Even if that message is about the person sitting right next to you, you should have the decency to send it later.
We are tempted by these easy ways of avoiding confrontation or personal conversations, but when we choose them, we lose opportunities to improve ourselves. We blindly become attached to an inanimate object when the entire purpose of the inanimate object is to better connect us with people. Yet it seems as though we are more concerned with avoiding people through our phones than connecting with others.
That said, I think we should all un-plug from the cell-phone world for a day or two. What would happen? Would you be lost or scared that someone would be upset with you for ignoring them? If your friends truly cared about you, they would wait. And if you care about yourself, you’ll give yourself a break from your 24/7 on-call job.