Junior Adam Smith talks en his reN phcfle Sept. 27 vvhile getting coffee at Mdnght 01. This was Smith's first )Wr \M1:h a cell phJne Noah Darnell Freshmen Jake Mendenhall and Hedi Tabor take a break en Ire front lawn to catch up wth their frierds Sept. 26. StuOOnts a:ill be seen on trer ph:m on al parts of campus during all hours Noah Darnell Sophomore Jeb Bell takes tme on Sept 26 to call a !nerd Wrffi I talk on tre ptuB. cutside on tre swrg is my favcxite place to 00,' Bell sad Noah Darnell Student gets technologically connected The stress of meeting with people for assignments or going to the movies tends to be hard enough "vith a cell phone. Now imagine not having one and never being able to knO\,v if people have already arrived, if the time was changed for the meeting or if there was an emergency. . That was dle life of junior Adam Smith who went from class to class without receiving a text message, without missing a call from his mom and without that annoying vibration coming from his bag. . "My parents got a very basic cell phone plan about 10 years ago so that my brother and J could call them when they were working, and we just kept that plan the whole time," Smith said. 'We were all usually around phones anyways. 1 had thought about getting one when I came to school, but it just seemed more expensive than it was worth at the time." However, what about basic communication? With the world being so communication driven, how could anyone manage to get anything done \\~thout a cell phone? "It can be challenging to stay up to date on what the current plans are with my friends or to really just talk to anybody dlat I know," Smith said. So in a culture that tends to be deadline and meeting oriented, how did a guy without any constant source of communication get around? ''The phone in the room on the landline made things a little easier, but that was assuming that J was in the room," Smith said. "It put a little more of the burden of planning on my friends and made them have to put a little more effort into the relationship since they would have to come find me and wait for me." Smith, however, never seemed too put off by aU of the extra work that he and his friends had to put forth in order to hang out or just catch up with one another. "A lot of it was just [a matter ofj planning ahead of time, and often times J would just be with a friend that did have a phone, so 1 could find out what was going on that way," Smith said. There was of course the occasional inconvenience of missing a friend or a group meeting because of not being able to reach him. "There were a few boring afternoons in there [when r couldn't meet up with friends]," Smith said. In spite of these inconveniences, Smith was not one of those people who depended on the ability to contact his mom or anyone else while on the road. Smith never worried about running into problems on a drive home or finding himself ·without a means to dial roadside assistance. "1 was so used to just not having a cell phone that it wasn't a big deal," Smith said concerning his isolated trips home. ''Plus I am a fairly large guy, so T didn't have to worry about getting in trouble tOO much." Nevertheless, Smith recogrllzed that there could be some advantages to cell phones. "There were a few times I could tell that [having a phone] would be quite helpful to my social life at college," Smith said. This past summer, Smith broke down and gOt a cell phone. Welcome to mainstream America, Adam. Farran Martin seniors 77
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