Cell Phones: Love Them or Hate them, We Do Use Them

In a recent piece Joel McNally wrote for The Shepherd Express entitled, Cell Phone Conspiracy, McNally takes on the on a recent decision by the Milwaukee Superintendent of Schools to ban cell phones from schools.

I take exception to some of Joel’s arguments that the ban is ridiculous and another example of the problem with Milwaukee Schools is the administration not the students, because the problems with the Milwaukee Schools system are too numerous and varied to get into in any format less than book length expose.

But what his article did point out to me is how long the cell phone has taken to acquire a set of social protocols’. In other words, what is appropriate cell phone use and when does it become rude and unseemly to use one?

One of the problems with technology is that it challenges the way we have done things in the past. As a result we don’t have rules about the use of new technology and ambiguity results. Trust me, you don’t want to be in theater during a live performance and have your cell phone ring, particularly if you customize your ring tone with something like the opening bars of “Stairway to Heaven” or Beethoven’s, “9^th Symphony”. The sacrifice of your dignity is the least you’ll surrender.

For as long as cell phones have been in common use, the controversy still rages about public cell phone use, cell phone use while driving or answering your cell phone during meetings. We simply haven’t agreed on generally acceptable rules.

We are shocked to learn that people use the camera and record functions at times that seem to violate people’s privacy, but rejoice when a cell phone photo exposes wrongdoing or criminal activity, all the while recognizing that the line between these things is non-existent.

The other problem is less obvious. I call it techno-envy. Some people feel that things like cell phones have certain cachet or class distinction. If everybody can have cell phones, when ownership becomes so common that it has no social or economic status, than some people feel free to rewrite the rules.

I recognize that part of the problem with the use of cell phones in schools is a feeling amongst many adults that kids shouldn't own cell phones much less when we discuss poor inner-city kids owning cell phones. As McNally mentioned in his column, if an inner-city kid owns a cell phone the assumption is that he must be in the drug business. When it turns out he is just blabbing with his friends like a soccer mom cruising the grocery aisle with her ear phone or her shoulder cocked holding her flip phone in place, than the inevitable question comes up. How can he afford that?

The other problem with some technology is that it grows and changes so quickly. We quickly established that it’s not a good idea for people to have active cell phones in a theater and than the manufacturer’s put cameras in them. Now the questions becomes is cell phone use inappropriate, but camera use permissible in some cases. When we realize that a cell phone Camera is just that, and if the occasion permits the use of a camera than the fact that it resides in a cell phone makes no difference.

We will sort this out. After awhile, it becomes a matter of what makes sense. In the end, this means that people with no common sense will always offend people who think before they act.