The Cellphone

If you want to communicate with someone you can, with practically anyone, at anytime, pretty much anywhere. Most people our age carry around a device in our pocket that allows us to do such a thing. But think about it, we are so accessible now and this accessibility is more recent. Never before in the history of the world have people been so accessible. When my parents were my age, they had to be near a telephone or make plans in advanced in order for their plans to work out, now someone can simply send us a text message minutes before.

We are also addicted to this technology. The age that kids get cell phones and begin to text has gradually decreased over the years. My six year old sister is already text messaging. Some people that I have talked to have claimed that if they had to give up their car or their cell phone for the rest of their life that they would choose to give up their car... this is how much importance we place on that device in our pocket!

Our telephones have come a long way. It all started back in the 1870s when Alexander Bell created the first electronic device that would transmit sound recordings, then it all began to evolve. The telephone began to change and evolve as it became more prominent in homes. Telephone lines and switchboards were created. Rotary dialing was soon replaced by keypads. Payphones were put into place in 1889 which opened up the opportunity for people to contact people from outside of their homes. Caller ID came about and allowed people to see who is calling before they even picked up the phone. Cordless phones came which allowed us to have no cords on our phone as we talked on it. Now, we have cell phones which has given everyone their very own personal phone line which opened up many more doors.

The cell phone is so entrenched in our way of doing things down that I don't believe many of us could give it up. I personally am so attached to my cell phone that I know that I just could not do it. I was going to do an experiment, like I did with Facebook, where I gave up using my cell phone for a while, however, our culture has changed to revolve around the cell phone, it has replaced telephone lines in our apartments, so it would have been pretty hard for people to contact me, so in the end I did not give it up.. and I don't believe I could have gone longer than a day without using my cellphone anyway.