What precisely are we students most dependent on? It was difficult coming up with a direct answer. We’re dependent on a myriad of things. Drugs- from coffee to prescription pills. Perhaps we’re also too dependent on other people- our friends, family or colleagues. However, our incessant use of technology is the most glaring dependency today, especially the smartphone addiction. Smartphones are the most visible dependency I can think of. They’ve become a part of our person. Every time I get on the Rutgers buses, everyone seems to be looking down at his or her phone. If you try to look up at someone and share a smile, they’ll just snarl at you, and start texting or reading reddit, buzzfeed, checking facebook, twitter, tumblr. It’s endless.
Smartphones are wonderful new “parts” of us that grant us every wish we’ve ever dreamed. They’re a new and improved palm, perhaps, filled with many more secrets than our wrinkled lifelines. But we seem to have lost a sense of self – our literal consciousness of flesh and being – with our addiction to portable Internet providing devices. What are we without our iPhone’s now?
If you’ve ever had your smartphone die when you’re out and about, you know it sucks. In that 20 minutes your phone was dead, you missed #thanksmichelleobama, your friends one–time invite to a Wavves concert, and a bombing of Gaza, which would soon be talked about in a history class you’re on your way to. It feels like you’ve just lost all connection to everything. But, in truth, when you’re phone dies you don’t die with it. You haven’t lost a palm. You’re still alive and connected to the world around you. You still have a brain that can do its own thinking without constantly being informed by the magical palm. It’s a little unnerving to feel nonexistent when your phone isn’t charged up.
I think it’s a good omen when our phones die, even at seemingly inopportune moments. Because every moment feels inopportune to be offline these days, so sometimes it just has to happen by force. I guess this absence of self-awareness which technology induces is my primary concern here. There isn’t necessarily a lack of face-to-face interaction, but when we don’t have someone to talk to, or nothing is being said, we’ve lost ease with our own minds and our acceptance of the offline world. We have trouble just staring aimlessly into space and self-reflecting now, because we’d rather use the Internet to fill this void. How long could you exist without looking at your phone? Try drifting off today, it’s nice.
Cody Beltis