The Tossed Salad

“You and I in this beautiful world”, of course who doesn’t know the Vodafone track, with reference to the youth “I” refers to the “User” and “You” refers to- no! Not the pug, or anyone else but the “Beloved Cell Phone”. Suddenly parents and new friends are a button away, choices are made more quickly and new sets of relationships emerge.

Be it a student or a teacher, a vegetable vendor or a restaurateur, a milkman or a salesman, the youth or the old, children or parents, a manager or a trainee ,whoever it is, needs a cell phone now a days. It’s not just a status symbol or sign of superiority like in the good old days when only the Manager had the cell and his colleagues envied him or like several years ago it was nothing more than a regular landline phone except you could take it with you.

The impact of cell phones on today’s youth is astronomical. Cell phones are becoming to today’s youth what rock and roll was to the youth in the 1960’s. A study reveals that the 18-25 age group, spends between 90 and 125 minutes every day on their phones, using them to read books, chat with friends, surf the Net, or listen to music.

A report out of Australia reveals some teens are so dependent on their mobile phones that they see them as an extension of themselves and experience a sense of dread when they are separated from them. The youth survives on SMS. It has become a mandatory thing with the students and working community to talk over SMSes since it is affordable and also user friendly – things which cannot be conveyed personally can be well conveyed through the SMS (I said it right, right guys??).

We all have become “nomophobes”(obsessed with the cell phone). “Getting married, starting a job or going to the dentist” have long been recognized as sources of great stress. But it seems they are now matched by a new, peculiar, latest 21st century’s affliction to our lives – the fear of being out of contact with the mobile phone. Millions apparently, suffer from “no mobile phobia” which has been given the name “nomophobia”, one of the weirdest and most bizarre of phobias.

It’s very common with everyone today and specially the youth that we are taking up an addiction with the phone today. It’s observed that people start getting uncomfortable, rather restless when there is a delay or when there are no phone calls or texts or even no coverage.

Whatever it is people now make sure that their cells have credit currency; so much so, that the youth have cut down their coffee intake for the sake of the currency in their cell. And believe me; the student community doesn’t spend even a part of their pocket money on eating or other necessities like stationery. Instead, a major portion goes to the recharge.

You must have been bombarded by your parents with the question “Where does all your cell balance go so fast? Hadn’t you recharged it yesterday itself?” Now who on earth would explain them where it went? I mean it’s the era of communication, with Saif and Deepika engraving it in our minds through their movie-Love Aaj Kal. But our parents won’t understand it; rather they don’t want to understand it.

Well, young people, in their insatiable quest to embrace the new, have quickly adopted these devices into their lives in ways that emphasize the unique experience of the phone. The youth today believes in socializing, making friends, making so called “contacts” in this money-hungry, competitive world.

Blame it on service providers, who’ve made it extremely convenient to get a recharge – like vouchers and coupons starting from 10 INR, which enables anyone to get it done, various college special schemes, for low call rates, free SMSes, national-local calling, calling cards, MMS, GPRS, online-recharge and now even credit recharge. What more is needed for enticing people? Why won’t people turn into nomophobes?

An add on to this enticement is the need for communication in the fast and stressful lives of the people. What’s better than a cup of coffee and a long chat with an old friend or even chat sessions over the SMS with your spouse after a troubled, polluted, busy day?

Cell phones have revolutionized wireless communication and have broken geographical barriers and shrunk the distance involved in global communication. They have changed the socio-cultural-economic dynamics of communities and countries. Cell phones are enabling people to create their own micro-cultures; they are changing cultural norms and values, and demonstrating the consumer’s ability to modify and repurpose technology for their own use. On that note we sign off. Rather, switch off!

Zeeba Baig

[ratings]

[image courtesy: http://flic.kr/p/6ZY971]

Author: Zeeba Baig
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