Cell Phones and the Changing World

For my blog, I am going to discuss how having a cell phone has changed every-day life. Each day, I think about how different my life would be if I did not own a cell phone and I have managed to come up with numerous ways in which cell phones have changed every-day life. I will begin with how having a standard cell phone has changed the way we do things and then I will progress to how much having a smart phone has changed how we do things even more.

The first way in which cell phones have changed our lives is the obvious one, the speed in which we can communicate. Before cell phones, if you were out driving to get somewhere, you were unable to communicate with anyone until you got to your destination. If you were running late, there was no way to quickly notify whoever it was that you were late to meeting. If you needed someone to bring you something and you forgot to let them know before you left, you were out of luck. I know that right now I am always running late so I just give whoever I am meeting with a call and let them know. There has also been many times where I will be meeting someone somewhere, say for a group project, and I forget bring something we need. I will just call them when I am on my way and if they have not left yet, they can grab it. However, with these benefits, come some negative effects as well. As we discussed in class, the cell phone almost makes it okay to be late. Before cell phones, you needed to be much more cautious and make sure that you were where you needed to be on time because if not, you didn’t know if whoever you were meeting would wait on you. Now, though, it has almost made it acceptable to be late because you can just pick up your phone and let them know you will be late so they will know you are still coming and wait on you. In addition to this, I feel like cell phones have almost made us less responsible. Like I said before, there has been many times I forget something but I know that I can just make a phone call and have someone else bring it, where as before, if I did not have someone else to rely on, it would have made me prepare the things I needed in advance so that I was sure I had what I needed.

Next blog, I will continue to discuss different ways in which technology has changed society and our lives, both negatively and positively.