Wired in

The fine line between cellphones as tool, accessory and added appendage has blurred and seemingly vanished in today’s world. On the bus, in meetings, at the dinner table, the small devices—smart or not—are as ubiquitous as they are ostensibly vital to day-to-day operation. In response to student complaints about unreliable cellular service across campus, Duke’s Office of Information Technology partnered with service providers to build new antennae systems and upgrade cellular networks. The 18-month, $14 million project is funded entirely by AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. We applaud this initiative, which will help to alleviate student frustration from one too many dropped calls. Yet the project raises questions about the ubiquity of cellphones and the impacts this portable technology has on our daily lives.

We have come a long ways since the days when conversing with someone necessitated a face-to-face interaction. Cellphones have increasingly substituted these invaluable in-person communications with impersonal text messages. Today, it is not uncommon to text a friend living next door rather than call or meander the five-foot journey to engage in person. The evolving terrain of interpersonal relations from face interactions to text messages—which themselves involve a peculiar linguistic phenomenon of acronyms and grammatical errors—can detract from our ability to engage with important social cues and body languages. Cellphones in this way have adversely changed the dynamics of interpersonal relationships.

If cellphones have decreased the amount of time spent with others face to face, then they also facilitate a lessened engagement when interacting in person. A dinner, it seems, would be incomplete without a cellphone buzzing from atop the table or a conversation interrupted by a new Snapchat notification. And while the various social media applications so readily available and conveniently centralized on the cellphone interface—Instagram, Twitter, Facebook—may offer the perception of hyper-connectivity with friends, it in fact promotes breadth rather than depth in personal relationships. The ability to learn about fall break adventures through a Facebook status or an Instagram photo provides only a surface update of a friend’s life that an in-person conversation would bolster.

Cellphones, in this way, have become an inseparable inorganic appendage to the organic body. Connected all the time to the wealth of information available at our fingertips, we have become increasingly wired in pervasive ways—take, for example, the habit of checking email every few minutes without necessarily processing the action.

In the classroom as in personal relationships, the invasion of mobile devices has been seemingly ubiquitous. It is not uncommon for phones to be out and text messages to be sent during lectures. Even when not in use, cellphones are often splayed across tabletops or vibrating from within backpacks—constant distractions from learning and attentiveness in class. The use of cellphones in class is ultimately a personal choice; however, it is important to consider the impact on fellow students. Certainly, the impact on others in large lecture courses may be minimal, but in smaller seminars the use of cellphones can be distracting and conspicuous. Although mobile devices can offer some utility in a classroom setting—recording lectures, for example—they often serve more to distract than benefit. Ultimately, the average class lasts 75 minutes, a dinner perhaps an hour—consider unplugging yourself for these brief respites to fully engage and devote your attention.

The Editorial Board did not reach quorum for this editorial.