I'm MIA Without My BlackBerry: Expanding on Dani and Allison's Thoughts

I found it very appropriate that Allison and Dani both discussed the idea of our dependency on cell phones, as I experienced a similar situation this week. I woke up on Tuesday morning horribly ill, suffering from a thoroughly unpleasant combination of my allergies, and that flu-like cold that every Lehigh student seems to have. Knowing that I had a busy week and could not afford to miss the activities I had planned on Thursday and Friday, I knew I had to place myself in self-imposed quarantine. I attempted to spend both Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning in bed, sleeping the cold off. 

During this time, my BlackBerry was less than helpful. About every two or three minutes, my phone would go off, and even when it was on vibrate, the emails, texts, and bbm conversations were incredibly distracting. Eventually, I shut my phone off completely just so I could get some sleep. When I woke up several hours later, and turned my phone back on, it was like the apocalypse had hit. 

I had missed several important emails, had gotten so lost in a bbm conversation with members of the campus organization I am a part of that I couldn't figure out what anyone was talking about, and I spent so much time catching up with emails and phone calls that I lost track of time and missed an important meeting on Wednesday afternoon. Needless to say, my effort to get some sound sleep was nothing more than an EPIC FAIL.

I chose to discuss my BlackBerry bumble because it truly showed me how dependent I, and so many of my peers, are on our phones and the instantaneous communication features they offer. My friends assumed that I would immediately answer to their bbm conversation, and were agitated by my lack of response. Additionally, I never realized how many emails I received in any given day until I was purposely attempting to ignore them. It made me realize that if I didn't have my smart phone with me on a daily basis, I would feel this same sense of chaos every time I came home after class and opened my email inbox. Additionally, if my phone was off for any extended period of time, I would likely miss opportunities to interact with my friends and attend important events. Yes, my minor hiatus from my communications device was relaxing while it lasted, but on the whole, I would say that it is better to keep my phone on, as I am apparently missing in action without it.