A Cellular Generation

A detailed Summary of A Cellular Generation

There is no escaping them. They are everywhere such as in the stores, at the movies, in restaurants, in church, even in the classroom. And just what is this causing the constant buzzing in your ears and the persistent ringing in your head? Teenagers with cell phones! It seems that everywhere you turn there is a giggling, gasping, gossiping girl or a babbling, bellowing, blaspheming boy chattering away at a buzzing, ringing, palm-sized piece of plastic. In a national study by Teenage Research Unlimited, it was reported that nearly six million teenagers own a cell phone today (Lee,"Tailoring Cell Phones for Teen," par. 7). Where has this craze come from? Why the obsession over wireless phones? While cell phones cater to the modern teen's addiction to instant gratification, the "need-to-know-NOW" syndrome, they also serve as a mark of status, maybe a representation of maturity and certainly as source of comfort to an insecure and developing teenager.

Before cell phones were the hip thing it was pagers. And before that, it was little electric diaries with which you could beam messages to your friend sitting on the other side of the classroom. If you were really cool, you had one with voice recognition that

eventually stop satisfying our desires: "Our technology works. But all idols do at first. [. . .] For the fact is that all idols appear to work - at first. That's how they become idols" ("Promises, Promises", par. 5).

While thirty-three percent of teens own cell phones now ("Have Cell Phones Changed Society?", sec. 6), a market research study released by Cahners In-Stat Group believes that half of all United States teens will own cell phones by the year 2004 ("Gen "Y" erless", par. 5). This was surprising to me. Not because of the ridiculous amount of cell phones that will be in the hands of teenagers, but because I thought that surely more than half of America's teens own cell phones today. Human interaction is now at an all-time low with instant messenger, e-mail, even on-line dating. America has become almost dependent upon them. Teenagers are hooked on things that let them know exactly where their friends or girlfriends or boyfriends are and what they are up to. Such things have given teens raised expectations of speedy service. They expect events to happen at a moment's notice.

Many teenagers seem to use cell phones as a crutch, their source of happiness. If they get messages then they are wanted. It means people care about them and love them. These things are often used as competition between friends. Who has more messages,

he sound of your voice. According to a new nation wide survey, a cell phone is the number one item on a teenager's wish list. Eighty-seven per

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Approximate Word count = 1001
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Technology