The Cell Phone Imbroglio at My Local High School

It helps to see history in “real time,” back when events occurred, in first-hand accounts.

Note to Reader: This essay recounts an incident in 2008, way before we realized that these little computers in our pockets are devilishly addicting. At this time, I think we’re all aware of their addictive quality, which helps quiet the effects (by doing things like deliberately making cell phones glitch up), but back in 2008? I’m afraid we were all ignorant, which exacerbated the impact of the addiction. This essay, written in 2008, describes it.

An interesting thing happened at my local, semi-rural, high school.

The senior class organized a school-wide prank: the students programmed their cell phone alarms to go off at 10:30. Because cell phones are supposed to be kept in lockers during class, this would result in a large number of muffled cell phone rings emanating into the hallways during class. It was a fairly harmless prank.

The administration got wind of it. In response, it assembled a team of adults. When the phones went off, they used master keys to open the lockers quickly and turn off the phones…