Column #3 - Cell Phones: Connecting or Disconnecting?

I had a strange experience the other day. I think it might lead to a paradigm (aka paradime) shift. I've always thought that a room with four girls in it, especially four girls who are friends, is a room full of the loud, giggle-filled conversation that pervade so much of the female life. But on the occasion of which I write, I was in this room with three other girls and the giggle-filled conversation was directed not toward each other, but into three separate phones. I was surrounded by female company, yet completely alone. Four girls. In a room. Talking to people not present. All of my preconceived notions about female interaction, lost. In a single cell phone filled moment.

It struck me as awfully funny at the moment, and yet it was also a moment of pause.

What new behavior is this new cell phone generation cultivating? We easily ignore the people with whom we're face to face in order to communicate with someone who isn't even there. We lose one more battle in the war against de-personalization.

Therefore, I propose a National Cell Phone Free Day. Remember those good old days when you were unreachable as soon as you stepped out of your house? Those days before you were enslaved to a small colorful square with an insistent song, demanding that you drop what you're doing (coffee with a friend, the typical "you too" to the cashier's "have a nice day," concentrating on the road, etc.) in order to ANSWER THE CALL? Those days when you actually had time to devote to the people around you?

It's time to take one day a year to return to those "good old days."

One day a year we will remember what it was to run out of gas on the side of the road, and have to walk a mile in subfreezing weather, instead of calling Triple A. One day a year we will remember what it was to get home from a long day of shopping, only to remember that we forgot the one thing we really needed - that crucial ingredient - because no one could call us to remind us. One day a year we will remember what it was to decide to stay a little later at the library, only to find out that we missed our best friend passing through on her way south since no one knew where to reach us. One day a year we will remember what it is to be CUT OFF from EVERYONE. Isolated.

Phew. I don't know if I can take that day. Maybe, instead, we can find that elusive middle ground between not being connected enough and being too connected...