Take a break from cellular phone use

Do you remember those games in "Highlights" magazine that you used to play in doctors' waiting rooms? The ones where you had to guess what object the clues were describing? Well, here's one for you: I am small, mobile and convenient. I am also annoying, intrusive and, at times, inappropriate. Many people use me. Many of those same people also criticize the use of me. What am I? If you guessed a cellular phone, you'd be right.

This use of cell phones has been addressed on The Daily Princetonian editorial page before. (In fact, a friend of mine in the Woodrow Wilson School received some scathing criticism when he addressed the issue in the past). When the freshmen arrived on campus this fall, however, my friends and I noticed a greater profusion of cell phones than we had been aware of in years past.

Having younger siblings who all have their own cell phones, we realized that this would be the norm from now on. As cell phones have developed with the new technology, they've become smaller, cheaper and easier to use. Many parents get new drivers phones as a safety measure. Thus, students now come to Princeton used to idea of having a cell phone from home.

I won't say that I haven't ever walked across campus talking on my cell phone. I'll admit that it's easy and very convenient. I will also admit that I'm a complete hypocrite who hates it when he sees other people walking around talking on their cell phones. I know the values of cell phones with nationwide calling plans, free minutes and the ability to talk whenever and wherever.

Yet, it is exactly this ability to talk wherever and whenever that bothers me. I used a cell phone as my principal phone this summer. And the one thing I hated the most was that someone could reach me at every second of the day. There are times when I don't want to talk to anyone. Granted that I don't have to pick up the phone just because it rings, my first inclination was always to do so, and not until I picked it up did I realize how much I didn't want to talk. There is something to be said for not being reachable.

In today's fast-paced modern society, we need all the peace, quiet and solitude we can get. The fast pace of life today gets refracted and even magnified, I would say, when we walk through FitzRandolph Gates. Princeton is set up so that we are always with people. When we choose our roommates, we form a "draw group." When many of us eat our meals, we eat in an "eating club." Your friends or people you know are around you at almost all times of the day. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing necessarily. But, it does make it difficult sometimes to find time just for yourself. (And time spent alone with your books doesn't count). Cell phones just seem to make any sort of solitude all the more impossible.

Now I'm not saying that we should have a "cell phone free" campus. Or that students shouldn't ever use them. As I've said, they are very convenient. But I do want to think about the lack of privacy that the use of cell phones engenders. And about how, if we are already running too quickly from one thing to the next, cell phone use might just exacerbate this harried and frenetic state of existence.

If we can strike a balance between necessary and excessive use of cell phones, we might begin to halt the growing complexity of our lives. Perhaps, now that my anti-cell phone Woodie Woo friend has turned in his thesis, he might be able to establish some sort of task-force to examine this issue. John Lurz is an English major from Lutherville, Md. He can be reached at johnlurz@princeton.edu.