My Pathway to Freedom and Seclusion
At 7am, I could hear the loud buzz of my alarm vibrating on my nightstand placed within arms reach of my bed. At the sound of the buzz, I quickly jumped out of bed and ran down the staircase of my suburban home as a fifteen year old girl. I quickly approached the bottom of the stairs where my mother, father and two sisters (aged 11 and 17) were sitting at the table waiting for me to join our daily routine of eating breakfast together. It appeared to be another Sunday morning, until my eye quickly caught a glimpse of a small rectangular box sitting alongside my plate.
As I ran and sat in my seat, my sisters and I sat eagerly waiting to open our gift. Today was the morning that we would receive our first smartphones. We quickly grabbed the small boxes to the right of our plates at our parent’s consent. As I examined the gift with my hands (prior to ripping it a part), I had a quick recollection of my parents telling us the summer prior that we would receive a new phone for the start of the new school year. Out of pure excitement, we tore open the wrapping paper on the small boxes and that was when I saw the iconic Apple logo for the first time in my hands. My sisters and I could not stop staring at the tiny box as our eyes were filled with ecstasy. This was the moment that I received my very first smartphone, and my use of this piece technology would change my daily interactions more than I could have ever realized at that very moment.
My sisters and I quickly ran to the nearest outlet by the dining table to charge our new phones. After holding the phone in my hand and examining every angle I quickly finished breakfast and began to call my closest friend of five years, Christina. As she answered, I went on to discuss how I received an Apple iPhone and wanted to call all of my friends to give them my new number. I immediately began taking pictures and used the search engine to look up information that I would typically do using my desktop computer. The phone was a symbol of unlimited freedom to me. I once was restricted, not being able to instantaneously chat with my friends and share photos. What I was able to do on my own without my parent’s consent now seemed unlimited to me. Upon receiving my new iPhone my time consisted of staring at the small lit up screen and scrolling through messages and photos everywhere I went. I would use my phone to communicate with friends during class and outside of class, a luxury I did not enjoy before.
Later that morning after receiving my phone, we all went to the beach, which had been a typical Sunday routine for us. I recall my parents questioning why we had to constantly stare at our phones throughout the entire day as we seemed to ignore their presence inside of the car as we drove to the beach. My sisters and I ignored their comment and continued to sit in preoccupation with our phones, adding new contacts and taking photos. As we drove alongside the beach, I began snapping pictures along the coast. I remember taking pictures of the waves crashing along the beach and of the seagull who would not leave us alone as we snacked on pretzels.
The constant use of my phone continued after this day during my first week of school, I repeatedly messaged and called my friends to schedule weekend plans. I began chatting and texting more than I usually had and it distracted me from paying attention to my classmates and instructor. I was far more interested in what was going on with my friends who were not in the same physical space as me than I was in what was happening around me. Periodically checking my phone for new text messages from my friends during class time became a common occurrence throughout my sophomore year of high school.
For instance, during the first week of my sophomore year I was asked to put my phone away during a lecture in history class. I followed the instructions, but shortly later I snuck my phone back up from my purse and into my hands as I began chatting with my best friend who was attending a different class down the hall. I used this phone to stay in constant contact with those people who were closest to me and used it to circumvent adult authority. The transition from a phone where I had to press a button three times in order to get the “L” character changed to only having to click “L” once on my new touch screen keypad. This allowed me to quickly send messages and search the web even when I should have been taking notes and paying attention in class.
Roughly a month after I received my iPhone as I hopped in my sister’s car at seven o’clock in the morning. We were on our way to school and I scrambled through my papers and binder to make sure I had completed all of my homework assignments for my class that I had been running late to that morning. As we arrived at school, my sister quickly parked the car and I flew across campus, rushing and rumbling just to make it to class on time. As I sat in my seat eagerly awaiting the quiz, we all passed up our homework assignments. Afterwards, I opened up my bag to reach for my phone in the small zipped up pocket that I always kept it in. As I felt my hand brushing along the inside of the pocket, I realized there was nothing there. I did not have my phone with me.
I went from being relieved that I had finished my assignment and made it to class on time to being completely distressed within a matter of seconds. I realized I had not brought my phone with me. The lack of not being able to communicate through my phone sent chills down my spine. Not having my phone with me that day kept me from organizing my weekend plans with my friends as this was the typical text messaging topic of a Thursday afternoon. Not having my phone felt like my left arm was cut off. My iPhone became an extension of my body, always remaining within arms reach from the moment I opened that small white box a few weeks prior.
As soon as school ended, I quickly jolted home to find my phone sitting on my dresser. I had left it in the spot where I got dressed and fixed my hair each morning. As I quickly picked up my phone, I had a variety of messages waiting for me. These included missed calls, missed text messages (from 8 o’clock that morning) and voicemails. Simply not having my phone for a period of eleven hours made me feel like I missed a large part of the day and my life. Although the content of the messages and voicemails had not been of particular importance, it became clear to me how much of my personal interactions and activities were organized by this simple piece of technology.
Looking back now seven years later, not much has changed with my interaction and use of my iPhone. To this day, I have received the newest model of every iPhone. I’ve always wanted what is supposed to be the best out there: the newest iPhone that takes the best pictures and has the most features. My phone continues to occupy a large space in my life, and it is how I organize my world and even reveal my identity through various apps such as Instagram. If I were to lose my phone today, I would have as much anxiety as I did when I left it at home when I was 15.
The iPhone has become so engrained in my life that I can’t imagine my life without it. I often wonder whether my constant use and engagement with this piece of technology would not have been as severe if I never received an iPhone that day. However, almost everyone I know today has a smartphone and is as consumed by its web savvy searching and online apps as I am. On this basis, I’ve concluded that the constant use of my phone would have emerged eventually, regardless of the age when I was first able to it. Unless of course I lived in a hole secluded from society, though this was not the case.
The experience of receiving an iPhone made me realize that once you’ve been introduced to a new piece of technology that changes your interactions with those around you on a daily basis and helps you organize and document your life, it is impossible to take it away (at least for me). While it makes communicating easier, I have also noticed that it has kept me from focusing on those around me such as my parents, as I often mute them out whenever I pick up my smartphone. Despite the fact that I have had a tendency to disregard those around me when interacting with my phone, my phone has transformed my life. It has allowed me to communicate with anyone at anytime, research information wherever I go (within data reception of course) and has enabled me to make plans . The smartphone became an integral part of my life that morning as a sophomore girl of fifteen and still remains to be today, seven years later.
