Text Wrestling Summary

In “Our Cell Phones, Ourselves”, Christine Rosen illustrates how the mobile telephone strengthens us to connect personally but disconnect socially; defacing the true meaning to ‘public space.’ She claims everyone at some point in their live will find themselves involuntarily engaging in a cutting edge act: overhearing someone else’s cell phone conversation. With more than one billion cell phone users worldwide it’s not surprising enough that on average Americans spend about 7 hours out of each month communicating on their cell phones. As more and more people become owners of cell phones, having a landline has become less essential than ever. As technology continues to grow, so does the availability of accessories on cell phones. Those accessories include but are not limited to – Internet access, camera & video recorder, mp3 player, navigation, etc. “There were approximately 340,000 wireless subscribers in the United States in 1985, according to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Associate; by 1995, that number had increased to more than 33 million, and by 2003, more than 1`58 million people in the country had gone wireless.” Rosen says with technology becoming a normal part of life, it has generated a change in our behavior and our adaptation to it has not been without fall out.
DynaTac is believed to be the first mobile telephone, which was presented in 1983 by Motorola. In this time, owning a cell phone symbolized wealth and power for whoever owned one. Besides professionals, whoever had mobile technologies were considered to be using them for criminal reasons. Come 1990, technology spread rapidly as cell phones became smaller, cheaper, and easily available. The most frequently cited reasons people give for owning cell phones are convenience and safety. In a recent study of cell phone owners, over 90% of them stated ‘feeling safer’ was the main reason for owning one. When the terrorist attacks took place on September 11, 2001 – many passengers used their cell phones to call their loved ones for the last time. Safety became a big factor after 9/11, as many people who never acknowledged owning a cellular device purchased one. Another factor that comes into play with the reason of safety is that many parents purchase their children cell phones so they can call them whenever they want/need to. What parents don’t realize with this monitoring technique is that they are disabling the bond of trust with their children. With safety comes the risk of danger when having a cell phone whiling driving. “A 2001 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that “54 percent of drivers usually have some type of wireless phone in their vehicle with them” and that this translated into approximately 600,000 drivers ‘actively using cell phones at any one time’ on the road.”
Many people throughout their day encounter public interactions that include certain implied behavioral rules. When approaching a checkout line at a store, you wait your turn in line. When leaving a store, you make way for other customers entering/exiting the store as well. What many people now have to experience when being present in a public location is the rudeness of a stranger conversating about anything and everything from horrible dates, work stress, recent purchases, etc. Being confined in public environments has always brought in the factor of human nature to be courteous towards others. Clearly the technology has disturbed many people’s capability to carry out common social rules. Without gaining the public’s approval, cell phone users force their conversations on the others around them. Rosen feels those types of rules need to be implied on the use of cell phones in public places. Cell phones provide comfort and/or security to the users restricted in the social space. Every call on the cell phone - whether it be in a store, on a train, or at work, in hidden manner sends out the message to the others around “look how important I am, how full my life is.” As the trust bond is breeding between individuals, trust between strangers in public settings is deteriorating. Cell phone users are enhancing and reinforcing communication with others they already know during the time and at the cost of those they do not. The result of this leads to the destruction of each other’s presence in a community.
With convenience and Safety being the main apprehensions people present, they also attain negative effects. Fast food relates to convenience, but also relates to our nation’s complication with obesity. Safety generates a fluster extent of anti-bacterial products and medication- which is now prevailing disease-resistant bacteria. Although providing us with new ways of communicating with others, cell phones restore talk, not conversation. Clearly the consistent accessibility and common exchange of information is valuable, but shouldn’t support disconnection of those amidst in society.