by Sandie Mcgary

Created on: May 14, 2009

Ah, the beginning of the romance between my teenage daughter and the cell phone began two years ago. At the tender age of 11, she stormed through the door in tears and stomped to her room slamming the door behind her. I, being a concerned mother of course, took off in hot pursuit after her. I gently knocked on her door and entered. "What's wrong sweetheart? Did someone hurt you? Did someone hurt your feelings?" at this point the over protectiveness started kicking in, "Did someone lay a hand on you, cause if they did I will be their tiny little...." "Ma, no! just leave me alone!" she said as she buried her head into her pillow. "Well what is it?" I ask ed impatiently. Boy did I ask for it! That's when my 11 year old daughter started running off at the mouth, words spewing out so fast that all I could catch was picking, me and cell phone. "Wait," I ask ed her. "Am I to understand you are in tears because someone picked on you because you don't have a cell phone? You are only 11, what do you need a cell phone for?" That was the moment I was schooled on the current social status that a cell phone allowed for young people these days. She didn't have one so therefore she was poor, and since she was poor she was certainly uncool. Really? Wow!

Well of course I couldn't let my daughter be the only one without a cell phone, little did I know that this was the beginning of a love affair that would have me pulling my hair out for years! That weekend I took my daughter to my cell phone company and picked her out a phone. She was so ecstatic and elated she could have floated home on the invisible air waves supplied by the phone. The next week it had appeared that she had a growth on the side of her head in the shape of a phone. When I received my first bill that included her on it, I was astounded by the significant number of pages I had received. A small piece of rain forest had lost its life to supply that bill. It was unbelievable. The following months the pages increased in size until finally one day I received a letter from my cell phone company stating that they would no longer be suppling me with a paper bill, instead I would be able to view my bill online. Not thinking much of it I signed online and set up my account. What my eyes saw immediately explained the lack of a paper bill. I literally had over 300 individual pages of bill.

It was that moment I realized that the cell phone was the new "Atari",(yeah, I'm old) the new game that everyone just had to have. It was not just a phone it was an appendage, it was a major artery that if severed could mean instantaneous death(socially, that is) to whichever child lost that connection. Walking around in the mall, grocery stores, movie theaters and even restaurants, it became evident that the increased usage of the cell phone by teens is an addiction. Cell phones are the new "in" drug! Cell phone companies are the suppliers and parents everywhere are the pushers! Well, not really but sometimes when I see my daughter in her texting trance, its almost like looking at a kid who's stoned. High on her texting and instant messaging, laughing at unseen things that sometimes I think are only in her head, I can't help but wonder, what will life be like in a hundred years? Will we be like the fat and lazy people from the movie "Wall E"? Allowing our needs for bigger better technologies to take over and do everything for us until we can't do anything for ourselves? Nah, it's just the need to reach out and touch someone and nothing more. Or is it?

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