by Maria C Collins

Created on: September 23, 2008   Last Updated: February 02, 2011

Mobile telephones mean that people can more easily contact one another than ever before but they are also causing problems. Studies show that teenagers are lacking in social and personal skills because they spend their time texting and speaking on their telephones rather than interacting face to face. They are living their lives one step removed from life rather than being part of it and are not learning the skills that they will need in adult life.

In a recent experiment, youngsters' mobile telephones were taken away for a week to see how they fared without them. One young man said that he woke in the night several times during the study, thinking that his mobile telephone was ringing and reached out to the bedside table to answer it. He also spoke about the novelty of actually walking round to see a friend, rather than texting him on his telephone. The young man's mother said how pleasant it was to have a proper family conversation around the table, at mealtimes, without her son constantly having the mobile telephone glued to his ear. This clearly indicates that this lad had been doing all his interaction using the telephone and was not experiencing normal everyday interaction with real life.

I once observed four young people out for dinner together in a restaurant. All four were using their mobile telephones throughout the meal and rarely exchanged a word with each other, except to comment on their various telephone conversations. They were so busy interacting with others, outside of the restaurant that they barely acknowledged their companions.

Mobile telephones are very useful to summon help in an emergency, also for keeping track of youngsters, but they can be used to avoid real life. One young man admitted, recently, that he and his girlfriend had decided that their relationship had no future and had broken up in series of about thirty text messages. How very sad, one wonders whether the break up hurt any the less for being by text message, or whether it was a way of insulating themselves from the other's pain. Seeing other people's pain is a part of life and a part of learning and growing up. What did these two young people learn about others and themselves from this series of text messages?

There are often reports that employers have sacked their employees by text message and in a recent company collapse, the management sent a text message to all employees telling them they no longer had jobs. This, again, is a misuse of the mobile telephone technology to avoid a difficult and painful situation.

Mobile telephones can be a useful tool, but that is all they are, a tool, if misused, they lead to people trying to avoid real life. One cannot put a wall of technology between oneself and the rest of the World, without that insulation causing problems. Social interaction, face to face, is part of the skills humans need to learn, and have as part of their growth and development. Seeing and feeling other people's pain is a necessary part of life, and part of the natural development of our own humanity.

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