It's a few centimeters long, just right for us, feels hard and smooth in the hand, vibrates and we can never get enough of it: our cell ...
our cell phone! (Or did you have something else in mind at this point? I have to disappoint you, today is really just about the technique).
We love our little but hard-working little helper, who not only enables us to communicate with our loved ones but also allows us to research all questions, shows us the way, spoils us with our music and lots of entertainment, and always does exactly what we do want. We go nowhere without it, and when we actually have to be without our device, we feel kind of naked.
“What would you take with you to a desert island?” Of course, many people who are asked this question first think of the people who are very close to them and whom they would not do without. Immediately afterward, however, many already have their beloved mobile phone in their heads, with which, thanks to today's equipment, you can spend time under the palm trees without getting bored - and if you've had enough of the lonely island, you can simply use the Have the emergency call taken away from there!
But where is our almost fanatical relationship with this popular, electronic all-rounder taking us? On December 3rd, 1992, the first text message was sent to a computer from a mobile phone in Great Britain and a lot has changed since then: each of us sends around 700 text messages a year on average and there are still no message services from other providers, such as "WhatsApp", included, which meanwhile often replace the paid short messages and of which we send more than 30 a day - that's an additional 10950 messages a year! We spend over 3 hours a day on our cell phones and if we extrapolate that over our entire lives, it's a shame that in contrast we only spend a total of two weeks kissing!
But we seem to love it more to exchange information with each other via platforms and networks and what has also changed over the last few years: It is expected that you can be reached anytime and anywhere - and that immediately! If you don't answer immediately after the other person has received the read receipt of his sent message, you will often be bombarded with questions like "Are you still there?!" or "Why aren't you answering?!". And if you haven't been online on the social network for a long time, you're almost declared dead! Communication behavior has changed unmistakably and a constant willingness to be reachable everywhere is assumed. As fast as the world seems to revolve and change around us, we seem to have to be as flexible and mobile - right?!
Even if our electronic companions are just practical, they distract us from reality! It is now more important to many of us how many "likes" our virtual contribution receives than how we arrive in real life. Escape to written, indirect communication often seems easier to us, because here our counterpart does not see our reaction, which can hardly be concealed by facial expressions and gestures in a real conversation. By using smileys, we can tailor our feelings to the purpose of the conversation and not have to reveal ours.
We look at our lives almost as if through mobile binoculars, through which our actual existence in the here and now seems somehow more protected. A phenomenon that proves this sad fact can be observed in the case of catastrophes or acts of violence: eyewitnesses to such incidents may call emergency services or inform the police, but the next step is to record the scene with their mobile phone. Putting such a video on a social network is guaranteed to attract a lot of the valued attention of other people - of course, you can clearly argue about taste at this point! And in addition, watching acts of violence through the cell phone camera is a protective function - we flee from the role of possible first responders to a spectator level, in which we somehow no longer seem to be active on site. Like in a horror film, in which you get the creeps, but which you can still watch from a distance - definitely more comfortable!
Our relationships are also influenced by the constant use of mobile phones. How often do you see couples or friends sitting in a restaurant, but instead of talking to each other, they devote themselves primarily to their small, mobile gaming device and seem to forget everything around them? This is now so widespread that there is a separate term for it: phubbing, which is derived from the words "phone" and "snubbing" and means something like dampening. Due to the constant distraction of the mobile phone, we dampen or forget our counterpart and do not really notice the meeting.
Our request to you: We understand if your mobile phone is important to you and you cannot do without it in many situations. You don't have to either if you just think about the fact that this cannot replace real life. Take time for your real friends, because they have a decisive advantage: They don't run out of battery so quickly and they always have reception!
