Seduction by cell phone: What have we done?

NOTE: I wrote this piece for my current writing group, in response to two prompts. First, a quote from Joanna Trollope’s 2017 novel City of Friends: "…that tragedy was not going to spill over into making an equal tragedy of both their lives, and their marriage. 'I don’t mind the idea of sacrifice,' he said, 'I don’t even mind the fact of sacrifice. But it’s got to be worth it.'" Second, an oil painting by Swedish artist Anna Maria Lindholm Rogberg, titled 'Group Chat', depicting four girls at the beach: feet in the water, cellphones in hand, heads bowed to their screens. Together, yet apart. (Find her on Instagram here.) 

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I didn’t get a cell phone until the summer of 2013. By then I had been teaching college students for about seven years, over which I had witnessed the steady rise of the cell phone in the classroom. What had once been an unusual and exceptional tool for only some students had become an extension of just about every student’s hand. So much so that when COVID hit and we were all sent off campus to work from the privacy and possibly the chaos of our own homes, we discovered just how many students had been doing all their work on their phones — because when their personal plan ran out of data, they stopped doing their work. (This also taught me how limited the reach of high-speed internet is in Manitoba, because some students would park outside the public library or local town hall to access the wifi signal.)

As is often the case, until I got the tool in my own hands I didn’t understand its allure. In my pre-cell days, I wore a wrist watch, wrote notes on paper, and took pictures with a camera. I couldn’t understand why students were so attached to their phones. My ways were perfectly good. Until I discovered that, in fact, a smart phone is so much better. All that power in one device that fits into my pocket. Irresistible! My father was correct when he said it should really be called a mini computer not ‘just’ a phone. He was mesmerized by its capacity and its potential.

That is both its power and its downfall. Because technology is not the device we hold in our hands but what is in our heads about it (1) — how we relate to it, how it locks us into its patterns and its promise of more...more...more. The cell phone has seduced us beyond our ability to manage its influence on our lives.

My mother would almost scream in frustration when her bank or a website presumed that she owned a smart phone on which she could receive the second part of the 2-part authentication required to access the service she wanted. She had a cell phone, but it was not a smart phone. It was dumb and it was enough for her. She happily used an iPad, but a smart phone never entered her own personal orbit.

When my own orbit was breached by that smart phone back in 2013, I was entranced by its power. I no longer needed to hunt the streets for a pay phone; I could look things up online while I rode the bus to and from work; I could check my emails, follow fascinating threads on Twitter, and text friends for any number of reasons. Emojis took my messaging to a whole new level of fun.

But, today, I wonder about the cost of the convenience and the function of our smart phones. I often see a group of (usually) young people together yet separated by the devices in their hands. It’s all good fun, until the day arrives when, without that device, we no longer know what to do with our time or how to communicate with each other. 

These are not the idle wonderings of a nostalgic senior citizen: Back in the days of my college teaching, too many of the students in my classroom were tongue-tied, almost mute, when asked to talk — actually TALK — with a stranger such as an employer or a customer. “Can’t I just text them?” was too often the question. Those young people had lost not only the appetite but the ability to look someone in the eye and talk ‘freehand’. They preferred the safety of a planned asynchronous text.

So I wonder about this powerful and amazing personal technology and what it has done and continues to do to us. Smart phones, tablets, EarPods, iPads — their power is seductive, but I look at all that we have sacrificed and I wonder if it’s worth it.

(1) I learned this concept from my former colleague Peter Denton, who has written extensively about technology and ethics. 

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If you have watched the current mega-hit British TV series 'Adolescence', you will know just how powerful (and wicked) the influence can be that enters a young person's orbit via their smartphone. It is a cautionary tale if ever there has been one. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Deep Advani on Unsplash