Janet Akselrud
Professor Gianoulis
ENG 111
26 September 2019
A Crutch Or A Tool?
During the summer of 2017, I found myself on a deserted island. It was part of a study abroad trip in Costa Rica and while my group was there, we did not have Wi-Fi, or a signal. I realized my phone was gone after we had gotten off the island spending hours traveling by bus and boat. At first I told only the chaperones and they immediately had worried faces thinking I was devastated. The reaction from my friends was worse. They were shocked, with wide eyes and a strong grip on their phone, confused that I didn’t care and scared from imagining how I would survive the remaining two weeks abroad. Why such a reaction? Losing my phone wasn’t the end of the world, but others thought it was for me because of the stereotype that teens, obsessed with their cellular devices, can’t live a minute without them. It’s not only assumed that we are always on our phones, but that we spend this time on social media and other forms of distractions wasting our life. This is simply a misconception.
Dropping my phone in the presence of a stranger was enough to spark a conversation. A lady walking behind me exclaimed “I’m so glad it fell on the grass” certain that my heart skipped a beat as I felt my phone slip out of my hand. I can relate to the hassle of getting a new phone when one is broken and the annoyance of losing saved pictures, but I don’t get depressed or restless from momentarily needing to go through life without a phone. All it means is that I might get lost a little more often, or have to ask strangers for directions, or have to go to the library and get a book.
It is easily possible for someone to be upset that they won’t be able to post pictures or talk to their friends on social media, but I am not one of those people. My mom’s friend once asked me to be the social media manager for her business assuming, just because I was a teenager, that I knew how to post on social media and had the time to constantly do so. I tried but It didn’t work out because social media is not my thing. I do have a facebook, instagram, and snapchat account but I don’t post pictures or stories, and I don’t keep streaks. On my phone in particular, the notifications for these types of apps are blocked. However, even though I’m not a social media fan I do, like others, constantly check my phone.
It’s fair to make the assumption that teens are on their phone a lot, according to the Pew Data Research center a whole 45% of teens report checking their phones constantly and an additional 44% report checking their phones several times a day but, since I said I don’t use social media often then what am I constantly checking my phone for? The answer is that a phone can be used for much more than social media because a phone is a multi-purpose tool.
On Tuesday morning my phone wakes me up at 7:30am. I have a specific song set as my alarm so I am not startled when waking up. After a morning routine, I sit down to finish my calculus lab. Having misplaced my calculator, I open the calculator app and use that to do all of the calculations to finish my homework. My phone can perform all of the functions of a calculator from simple addition and subtraction to exponents and trigonometric functions. Then, my afternoon physics class ends at 2:00pm and an alarm goes off on my phone once again, but this time the alarm is a reminder to go to the physics club meeting that starts at 2:30pm. I open my reminder and see that I need to go to the conference room in building 1N. However, I am on the opposite side of campus and I have never been to building 1N so I make sure that I don’t get lost by searching up a map of the CSI campus on my phone. As I walk to the building my phone vibrates, it’s a text in the physics club group chat saying we will be meeting in room 224 instead of the conference room. Just in the first half of my day, my phone has already saved me from oversleeping and from going to the wrong place multiple times.
I get home and my growling stomach reminds me that I ate breakfast a long time ago. I don’t want to grab french fries from a fast food restaurant because I care about my health so I decide on eating vegetable soup. I can improvise well enough to make a soup that is edible, but to cook one I will actually enjoy I google the recipe. I follow the directions on my phone until I get confused reading “ add garlic and saute 30 seconds longer”. I don’t know what the word “saute” means but I won’t give up on my soup because my phone also acts as a dictionary. After eating, I check my to do list and seeing the amount of unfinished homework makes me stressed. I start thinking that I will never be able to get everything done and that I can’t concentrate on answering the questions. My phone comes to the rescue again, I pause and listen to a meditation exercise that clears my mind and then continue working while playing relaxing music. In the second half of the day, my phone has helped me be healthy and get my work done.
Before bed, I call my family and I text my best friends. My grandparents tell me about how they went for a swim in the ocean and my mom tells me about the restaurant she chose for her birthday, and I tell them how I have had a good day. I text Arisha, who lives in Russia, to see how her music is coming along and I text Vasta, who is a year younger than me and still goes to my old high school, to find out about the soccer team and help her with classes I have taken the year before. I check my email and see an opportunity for a research class with the application due in two days. I add the application due date in my reminders, set my alarm clock and go to sleep.
My phone has so many tools that help in all parts of daily life. Having a phone means I don’t need to also have a physical alarm clock, calculator, calendar, map, cook book, dictionary, newspaper, cd or record player, or camera. Being on my phone all of the time means that I am utilizing these tools to be more productive and just because social media is one of the applications a phone can run doesn’t mean we, teens, waste all of our time on it. Saying a phone is used only for social media limits all of the other functions it serves.
I am an informed citizen, my grades are good, and I participate in extracurricular activities that are good for my physical and mental health. Spending time on my phone is not brainwashing me, especially when I am using it to help me accomplish everything.
Works Cited:
45% of Teens say they’re online constantly. PEW Data Research Center. May 29, 2018. https://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology2018/pi_2018-05-31_teenstech_0-05/
