Academia in the Age of Cell Phones - Shut Them Off!

Growing up in an age where most people own a cell phone, I often take their introduction into everyday life for granted. This is of course, not the case when it comes to classroom procedures. While attending college I observed not one, not two, but several people over the years openly converse on their cell phones mid-lecture. Some of these occurred in large, heavily populated lecture halls, in which the acoustics are already somewhat tricky, thus the cell phone conversations made it that much harder for other students to take decent lecture notes.

The first time this happened I was so upset and surprised by the behavior that I was speechless. The young "lady" who decided to call her roommate out of sheer boredom didn't seem to have a problem reciting the drunken debauchery from the night before. I sat there attempting to take notes on the popular culture of the fifties, while she went on and on about some guy she had met the night before. And what did the professor do about the situation? He stood at the bottom of the lecture hall, trying to grasp the attention of several hundred students. Chances are, he wasn't even aware of the situation, though I find that very hard to believe considering other professors in that same hall had spotted smaller interruptions and put an end to them immediately.

Over the next few years I spotted more mid-lecture cell phone users, and to my astonishment, some took place in classrooms with as few as fifty students. Late in my college career I witnessed a conversation, which took place in a room filled with no more than twenty-five! My stunned-silence did not last long. I had been so appalled by this new trend that I decided to become very vocal about the situation. This is not to say that I am a tattletale, quite the opposite. I decided it would be better by far to approach the conversationalist either during or after class.

Other students were not so discrete. A friend of mine was so upset by the disturbance; she raised her hand, asked the professor to pause his lecturing, stood up and called the cell phone user out in front of the entire class. We were all surprised when the student showed up later in the semester and forgot to turn off his ringer, which rang out, echoing through the auditorium.

Because I am technically in the same generation as the students who began college while I was on my way out, I cannot completely disassociate myself from these students. Likewise, this trend or taboo isn't entirely committed solely by freshman co-eds. Rather, I am noticing cell phones appear more and more in situations once deemed inappropriate. Recently while attending a wedding, the pastor felt it necessary to remind everyone to put their phones on silent mode, in case the vows should be interrupted. At one time I would have thought this unnecessary, comedic even, but now I realize that there is most definitely a need to train some cell phone addicts in the proper ettiquite for cell phone usage.

Perhaps this problem only grows with each passing year. Children are given cell phones at such an early age that carrying them around twenty-four/seven is merely a norm. The problem then, is that parents and adults must set a standard, professors must demand attention, and those offended, must make sure to tell them to take their call elsewhere, lest other students/church-goers/professors/doctors/patients, etc. are too shy or appalled to stand up for etiquette.