Problems with American Society - Cell Phones!

If you look around you on an everyday street, more and more people are using cell phones. In fact it is extremely rare for someone not to have a cell phone.

New cell phone technology is approaching and in some places has already arrived. New technology includes the new cell phone service underground and in subways.

In New York City, one of the biggest complaints about cell phones was that people did not get reception down underground in the subways. Subways are the biggest form of transportation for most of the people in New York City because they travel from each of the borough to Manhattan where millions of people work everyday. Important business or house calls could not be made and people would not be able to reach each other until they got out of the subway which could be an hour and a half later. There are telephones underground but most of the time they would be out of service.

The cell phone companies are headed by Verizon which leads the pack of cell phone giants in making cell phone reception in the subway systems available to people. In the heart of Manhattan around 5th avenue, cell phone companies have put up reception devices which pick up cell phone calls. The devices bounce the message off of the satellites and to the cell phone receiver.

There are many areas of the subways where service is not reached but pretty soon cell phone companies will make cell phone reception achievable anywhere.

Still the question is, has American society and culture become too reliant on cell phones? In the old days as older generations call it, there were no cell phones. There was no email and computers were relatively new and not massed produced. So you ask, how did people communicate with each other? The answer is through the home telephone and letters. People waited until they got home to speak to someone. The word "urgent" when used to describe a phone call has been used way too much and its definition has definitely been skewed. Most of the time phone calls are not urgent because they are not a matter of life or death.

American society is becoming way too dependent on cell phones. That is not to say that cell phones aren't important, because they are. However at times they have become downright annoying because people are not accustomed to leaving home without it. In college during a big exam where concentration and silence are a must, a student's cell phone will go off because they didn't turn it off. During a professor's lecture in one of my classes, I counted 5 times that a cell phone rudely went off. Needless to say, the professor got quite annoyed.

In other classes and even in real jobs I see people text messaging their friends instead of paying attention. This is really rude and disrespectful to the person talking. The text message can wait. There is simply no need for it. Earlier this week in May there was a big controversy over a school prohibiting students from having cell phones. I think it is a great idea because cell phones are really disruptive and prevent students from learning. If a call is really urgent or a parent needs to relay a really important message to their child, call the school office and they can give the message to the child in one of the classes they are in.