I actually thought a bit about this when I was reading chapter 11 from Slack and Wise, when they were discussing prescriptions and how technologies “delegate tasks to humans” (p. 142). He talks about how the mobile phone has delegated certain tasks to humans — a lot of them, in fact — especially when it comes to the pressure that’s placed on us to always be available, whether we’re in the subway or on some mountain somewhere. They say that “a whole new standard of expectations about being available is emerging as the mobile phone gradually blankets the planet” (p. 143).

This reminded me of how I’ve come to feel about having my cell phone near me at all times, particularly with regard to what that means for me in terms of staying in touch with my loved ones. I grew up in a time before cell phones, as I suspect most of us did, where kids just went and played and their parents didn’t think much of it if they didn’t hear back from their kids for five or six hours at a time. Now, with the constant connection that the mobile phone enables, it seems impossible for a kid to get away with that.

For me, that’s taken the form of worrying about my loved ones well-being more than I might have 15 years ago. “Why haven’t I heard from my fiance all day? Is everything ok?” Or even better, “Why did I just miss three calls from my mother? Did something happen to Dad?” Personally, the mobile phone has created this environment in which I am worried if I either hear too much or too little from the ones I care about. How messed up is that?

I have to think that this particular relationship I have with my mobile phone (I have many; it’s a pretty serious relationship) must be articulated from my environment in some way. With increasing danger and violence in small towns and big cities alike — car accidents, abductions, murders, attacks, and so on — it seems that the first thing we do is grab our cell phones. Slack and Wise talk about this phenomenon as it occurred with the Boston Marathon bombings.

This relationship is an assemblage — an joint where a technology and these elements of my world have combined for a time to create meaning. Perhaps this relationship will change (for the better) as time goes on, and I won’t rely so heavily on the constant comfort my cell phone provides, that knowledge about my loved one’s safety is just one call away. But as Slack and Wise say, this is contingent upon elements of my constantly changing world, and since I left my crystal ball at home I’m not sure what that exactly looks like.