Mobile bricks

My partner and I live in a small mining town in NSW. A few months ago, we moved to a property about 10 minutes out of town. This meant we had no mobile phone coverage. -GASP!- I, personally, take my phone everywhere with me and having no mobile phone coverage at my own home was a huge shock to the system. I was sitting on the lounge watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S and felt like I’d been taken back to the 90s when you actually had to talk to people (I know, the thought of talking, ugh), though my TV is slightly better than those from the 90s.

I had another shock last week when I tried to activate my new phone, but instead, my old phone stopped working too, and I essentially had two very expensive bricks in my hands. As Ingrid Richardson (2007) stated; “(the) mobile phone is customarily accepted almost as a body part or appendage.” People have grown so used to seeing people glued to their phones that no one questions it anymore. But we have to think about what this is doing to our social lives. Sure, you can call up a friend to hang out, but you can just as easily say everything you want to say over a text message. Boom, no human contact needed.

It’s a very sad, but true fact that I, along with many other people, could not live without my phone for a week. I noticed a while ago that unless someone’s phone is out of battery, out of service, or just not with them, they will be much less inclined to talk face to face. And when their phone is out of battery/service/not with them, the conversation is generally just complaining about how they miss their phone.

My opinions are coming from a 20-year-old’s perspective, which means I’m surrounded by other 20-year-olds who have grown up with this technology. Who knows, it may be complete different for a 30, 40, 50 year old who rarely uses their phone. From what I can see, mobile devices with keep evolving over the coming years and will eventually (if they haven’t already) take over our lives.

(The Meta Picture, 2012)

References

Richardson, I, 2007 'Pocket Technospaces: the Bodily Incorporation of Mobile Media', Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 2

The Meta Picture, 2007, 'Respect the Elderly', The Meta Picture, viewed 2 December 2013, <http://themetapicture.com/respect-the-elderly/>