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In the touch of a few buttons, I can contact my wife on the train coming home, my son walking down a street at his college, a niece who might be anywhere in the world. I can just say hi or I can relay happy or sad news. I can make sure my Mom and Dad are safe and they can check in with me about some great place they get to visit. Or I can know that if no one is calling me, all is good.

Before cell phones, when your high school aged child was late from school, a parent can move quickly through dozens of scenarios each progressively worse. An accident, a problem at school, trouble with kids after school. Of course, it could just be that a bunch of friends stopped for a pizza. And you wouldn't know until the student came home and said "I forgot to tell you, oops, sorry". This adds to the anxiety even more, because now you wonder if he is late if he is just forgetful or the other dark scenarios come out. Now with cell phones, it is harder to say "I forgot to call you, oops, I'm sorry" because you can call or text and get an immediate response.

I've refered to my phone as a leash. A leash I really prefer to have. Everyone who should need me can get a hold of me anywhere I might be. It's inportant that I feel I can be reached. During those days before cell phones, I could never tell if I decided to stop for lunch before going back to work was a good idea or a bad one. Now with cell phones, I know I can be reached anytime in case there is a problem.

An interesting place to be in contact is camping with Scouts, I can be reached by parents and friends and I can call home to update my wife on arrivals. Probably the best use is for drop off of Boy Scouts at the end of a weekend event. As we get close to home, we have every Scout call home to tell them when we should be at their house. If the parents aren't home, we call cell phones. If we can't get ahold of a parent, we find another place to drop off the Scout so that we know they were left with a responsible adult.

The criticism of cell phones is that they are intrusive. Yes, they can be. If someone abuses the privilige of calling me by calling too much over trivial items or too late, then it is time to have a real face to face discussion on what that means. On the other hand, being in contact with other people too much is not that different than when I was a teenager and talked on the phone for hours to a girlfriend or went and hung out with my friends. Teenagers are using the new media of texting and cell phones as we used the telephone. My parents would never have thought to talk to friends on the phone for hours. Again, if teenagers are over using the priviliages of a mobile world, then face-to-face discussions are needed. But to be critical of a great tool means you do not understand it.

Learn more about this author, Rich Harrington.
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