The Cell phone: An absolute necessity???

The cell phone: the face of the technology advancements of the 21st century. It is become important for communication and safety, but an absolute necessity? I think not. Cell phones are much to blame for an epidemic which is a lack of face to face conversation and socialising. Mobile phones have also brought into existence issues such as text bullying, stress - related to being contactable 24/7 and the pressure of having to have, and pay for mobile phones.

Over the past hundred years, we have gone from the telephone, to the fax machine, to cell phones and texting. As the progressions have taken place, the language and quality of the communication has been downgraded and we have been further distanced from the person we are communicating with. Everyday, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of text messages are sent all around the world. This can be useful for quick communication at all hours of the day, but it has also seen a decline in face to face socialising. As humans, we rely on, and in fact can not live without social interaction. Due to the invention of cell phones, our communication has become briefer and less meaningful because we are not fully responding. It is important to note that in an average conversation between two people, 80% of the communication during the exchange is through body language. This of course is lost in our new world of communication.

The cell phone has also seen the emergence of a new and cruel form of bullying – text bullying. Bullying used to be limited to the playground. Once you left school, those harassing you could no longer work their nasty tricks. No such luck since the invention of texting. Texting is a particularly insidious weapon of cruelty. Messages are brief and blunt and they find the victim wherever they may be. There is no voice to reason with or cut off. In a 2005 New Zealand net safe survey, 23% of teens reported receiving an offensive, pornographic, abusive or threatening text or picture on their phone and a British study in 2002 found that one in four youngsters aged 11-19 had experienced bullying through text. These numbers are phenomenal and show us that text bullying is widespread and a huge problem facing our communities today. There have even been several cases of teens committing suicide due to the huge emotional stress of being relentlessly bullied via cell phones.

In the world today we live with high levels of stress, suffer from depression and the incidence rates of suicide are increasing. The idea of being contactable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, whether you’re in your office or lounging on a beach in Hawaii, may sound appealing at first. However, because we can always be contacted, no matter where we are, we never have any truly ‘me’ time. No time to simply relax and distance ourselves from our busy home and work lives. Scientists agree that it is important to have a balance of work and play, but this is becoming increasingly difficult. How relaxing is your holiday going to be if you are constantly receiving work related calls texts and emails through your cell phone?

There is huge pressure in today’s society to have a mobile, whether you are 12 or 75. It is coming to be accepted as the norm. There can be huge costs associated with this. For many young people, it is essential to have the lasted “flip-top” or “i-phone”, and if they don’t, they feel isolated and lost. Keeping up with the latest technology can cost hundreds of dollars, with the new i-phone retailing at around a thousand dollars. Couple this with the costs of calling, texting and special plans and you’ve got one big cell phone bill. This causes huge issues for families on a tight budget with kids desperate to own that new cell phone, and sometimes people go without necessities in order to fund this sort of technology.

I do not however deny some of the positive factors of owning a mobile phone. No-one can question how useful it can be to be able to stay in contact when you are on the move. It can be great for businesses to be able to keep in contact with clients and know what’s going on when they are out of the office. They can get emails fired off to them wherever they are and they can respond to issues instantaneously. Mobiles also help to give parents a sense of security; they can always contact their children and know that they are safe. However, these benefits also come hand in hand with not so desirable factors. I believe it is a mistake to accept mobiles as a necessity or something that everyone should have, due to the many problems that arise as a result of the fact that they are so widespread.

The sad reality is that we no longer have close human contact as the staple of daily life, we are distanced physically and emotionally from those we care about and who care about us. We are competitive, stressed and constantly on the move. Although cell phones may be handy or useful, we can not forget the negatives that come alongside these. We are facing a huge decline in socialising that isn’t through some form of electronics and the rates of text bullying and stress are on the increase. Is this really the kind of world we want to be living in? To accept cell phones as an absolute necessity would be to allow them to take full reign over out wellbeing as individuals. Cell phones are not necessarily all they are cracked up to be.