As you may or may not know, I am an orientation leader. We do a skit called Life on Campus that describes issues that happen on college campuses, some scenes are specific to Oswego State.
It hit me the other day that at least four of the scenes deal with technology; specifically cell phones, how rude people are becoming because of it and the distractions it causes in everyday life. I guess I knew it subconsciously but never really thought about it, if you will.
I actually sat down at the mall last night, I was by myself, for about three hours just observing the people. There was not one person who did not have a cell phone on them. The sad part is, every single person I saw was with someone else while they were on their own phone. Is it so hard to communicate with the people we are with? Face to face communication? Is the company of the people are with not good enough that we have to resort to texting and calling other people? If this is the case, why doesn’t everyone just sit at home on their cell phone or instant messenger and have multiple conversations at once and not have to worry about being rude, if they even think about that. I just can’t believe how much this really happens.
I remember back in the day, in elementary and middle school where I would pass notes or talk in class and get in trouble for verbally speaking. Today, children starting as young as age 5 have cell phones and are texting their friends in class. It is absolutely ridiculous that we are so reliant on technology to speak to one another. What would happen to the world if the cell phone towers suddenly had a disconnection and cellphones stopped working? It would be a mad rush and people would probably start hyperventilating because they don’t have their phone and might miss an important text or a phone call. I may be a little biased on saying all this all. But I challenge you, for one day. Don’t use your cell phone. Don’t take it to work, don’t take it to class and see how you feel at the end of the day. I mean seriously, what did we all do before we had cell phones? We survived. We actually had to speak to people face to face and we got to see reactions on faces rather than a smiley face on a screen. So I challenge you all, feel free to let me know what you think or how it worked out for you if you’re brave enough to not use a cell phone for a day.
Sounds good. It’s really hard to do that even if you don’t have all of the nice apps and internet access on your phone. Nice challenge, Lizz.
When I was visiting Seattle, my host kept threatening to steal my iPhone and take it to work with her so that I’d just concentrate on enjoying the city. In my defense, it’s more than a Phone and the GPS is quite handy. But anyway.
It is sort of discouraging to walk past a building to see that when many students get out of class, the first thing they do is call someone on the cell. When I went to college, I cherished speaking to classmates and others while walking the quad. Whether we were discussing the class we’d just had, weekend plans or just the weather, at least they were real conversations.
Hi Lizz,
I attended the orientation with my son and I thought the skits were great especially the cell phone one. It really is sad watching kids go through daily life texting or on vacation w/ family texting. I feel like so much of life passes you by. Thanks for the blog…I enjoyed it.
Diane Nicolai
Thank you very much! Those skits kind of hit hard for me when we were rehearsing them. I never realized how often people are on phones and how much we don’t speak to one another face to face. I hope you had a great time at orientation!