Rules of the Phone

            In JJ’s blog about the effects of technology, he focuses on how technology can be beneficial to certain individuals, such as the biker who was paralyzed.  At the end of his post, JJ posed the question of at what point will technology start becoming harmful, and this got me wondering if we are already at that point.

            I did some research online about this subject and found an interesting article from the New York Times called “Step Away From the Phone!” 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/fashion/step-away-from-the-phone.html?pagewanted=1&src=me).  
The author, Caroline Tell, explains how phones are now getting in the way of family time and that they are alienating people from each other.  She even quotes a woman who says that we are becoming more uncivilized as a result of cell phones.

            Beyond taking away time from families, it is amazing how much time we waste on our phones and just how obsessed we are with the devices.  I have a friend who sent 6,000 texts in the month of June.  Although this may seem like a lot, it’s actually not that absurd for kids our age. An article from the Huffington Post used a stat from the Pew Internet & American Life Project showing that the Average American teen sends over 3,000 texts a month!  In order to send 3,000 texts, one has to devote a ton of time to texting, and generally that time is going to take away from studies and family time.

 

            Another reason I was inspired to blog about this issue was that I was at Old Orchard one day this weekend and I happened to walk by the Apple store.  The line was absolutely insane!!  It went out the doors of the store and started wrapping around the side. I think I can say that pretty much everyone there was waiting to get the new iPhone 5S.  The incredible part is that its not like these customers don’t have phones (I saw many of them on their phones!!); they just want the latest and greatest edition of Apple’s iPhone, even if it is exactly the same as the last model, apart from a few tweaks.  This just shows how obsessed America is with technology – it controls our lives! Also, if we’re willing to spend three hours waiting in line to get a phone that is essentially the same as the one we have, that implies an obsession with the newest gadget beyond pure functionality.

iPhone 5 vs. iPhone 5S

            The bottom line is that Americans (especially teens) spend far too much time on their phones, and much of this time takes away from family time, sleeping, studying, athletics, and just conversing with people in general.  In fact, I believe that texting as an alternative to talking hurts public speaking skills and conversational skills.  In addition, if students are texting instead of studying and sleeping it will definitely hurt their grades and they won’t be able to concentrate as well.

In Caroline Tell’s article, she discusses methods used to eliminate phone usage during family time.  Many families have a “phone curfew”, meaning you can’t text after a certain time.  Others simply put phones into a basket during dinner so that they are not a distraction.  While phones are very useful and make life easier, I think there is a limit to how much they should be used and when they should be used, and I think there should be some sort of texting limit.  What do you guys think?  And what do you think of the rules presented in Tell’s article?  Are there any other ideas you have that could help the issue?  Also, how will texting change social interaction in America?