COLUMN: Cell phones are taking over
Are you following events on campus?
How about the presidential debate? Are you aware of recent music, movies, and other trends?
If so, you probably have your cell phone to thank for this, with its many apps feeding you information. For most college students, it’s true: phones are their main connections to the world, from global news and national affairs, down to school events and hometown friends. It’s easy to feel caught up after scrolling through Twitter, CNN, ESPN, etc. and just seeing what’s popular or trending.
Because of this (along with the convenience of carrying a pocket-sized multitool) students on campus are always attached to their phones if not glued to the screens. Cell phones are grasped in the hands of students waiting for class to start. They’re wired into the brains of students walking to class.
Cell phones follow students during the day and lay next to them at night. With Pocket Points, students use their phones even when they’re not using their phones. College students are addicted to their cell phones.
Naturally, this addiction is unhealthy. Cell phones, while convenient, have a negative effect on students’ physical and mental faculties. Being so absorbed in one’s phone has a lasting effect on certain aspects of the user’s mind.
For example, overusing a cell phone weakens communication skills. From cell phones, students give and receive information in tiny bits at a time.
A text message, a headline, and a snapchat all deliver short, simple messages. A tweet is no more than 140 characters. Even recent news stories are frequently condensed down to paragraph length.
This makes it easy for the reader to quickly absorb the piece information and move on to the next piece. Unfortunately, in-person interaction comes in greater lengths. So when it comes time for a two-hour class period, cell phones may be to blame for a difficulty in focusing.
Cell phones don’t only impair communication skills face-to-face, but over technology itself. That’s right; cell phones make you worse at texting.
Cell phones are made for time saving, and efficiency does not call for punctuation, grammar, or the correct spelling of words. After typing informally for so long, then switching to the Mail app to email a professor or a boss, it is more likely that one or more errors will slip through.
In many cases, the error may not have been sent due to a lack of attention to detail, but because of ignorance that it was an error that was typed.
In fact, cell phones do not even require the user to socialize at all to receive information. It’s completely possible to sit in bed all day and catch up on what happens in the world spinning by outside.
It’s interesting how much cell phones connect their users with the outside world, while simultaneously making the two less effective at communication. When mixed with how much we rely on our phones, it’s becoming increasingly worrisome.
