You’re in one of the quiet rooms in the Glenn G. Bartle Library studying for finals. Besides a few rustling pages, all is silent, until you hear a familiar phone trill and you frantically dig through your bookbag, welcoming the distraction. But you’re not alone.
Odds are, at least three people around you are going through their bags or digging in their pockets hoping someone has sent them a thoughtful text or some juicy gossip.
We live in a world of immediacy. You go to Scoreboard or Tom & Marty’s on Friday night, and there are pictures on Facebook when you wake up Saturday morning. Something monumental happens on campus, you send a text to your close friends or post a tweet from your phone.
But with finals week upon us and a greater chance of giving in to that addiction to social networking sites such as Facebook (see Page 13), we pose to you a challenge.
We dare you to “forget” your phone at home for one day and see what happens. The freedom of not being tied down to a particular plan or always knowing where your friends are may lead you to some unexpected adventures and happenchance encounters. Experience what life was like before our generation mastered every aspect of non-face-to-face communication.
If you’re feeling daring, try going the whole weekend. Instead of being Downtown and wondering what your other friends are up to and texting them to see whether they’re at the Rat yet, try enjoying the company you’re with for once and living in the moment. No one likes sitting there awkwardly while the adjacent person is texting away, yet almost all of us are guilty of it.
If completely turning off your phone is too big of a step, we suggest you take an easier route and refuse to text; make a call instead. That awkward make-out session you had with your friend last night may be resolved by sending an even more awkward “let’s just be friends” text, but why hide behind your phone’s keyboard when you can be direct and figure out what the two of you are actually feeling through spoken words?
Maybe if you feel that cutting out your cell is like cutting off a limb, try abstaining from Facebook for a bit, slowly limiting the number of times you check other people’s photo albums.
No matter what you choose, just remember: Human relationships are still important — despite the technology-driven world we live in — and a lack thereof may lead to you creating a friend out of a volleyball and naming him Wilson, or revealing your deepest secrets via your Facebook status.