Are Cellphones Becoming our 3rd Limb?

Are cellphone playing too large of a role in teenager’s lives? With new technology constantly popping up in the market, cellphones keep getting better and better, with a single device replacing an mp3 player, game system, watch, and alarm clock just to name a few. But with all of this new technology available to teenagers these days, when will we see that cellphones are just a device, not another limb.

         

   As a teenager I am almost constantly on my phone, with it filling almost all of the down time at school throughout the day. I use it to text, play games, as a clock, watch a movie, and to do about anything I could think of. It keeps me linked to the world and updated on any recent events. It can start or finish a chapter in my life with a single button press, and is almost a 3^rd arm for me and almost any other teenager. Just to think that 20 years ago, id need at least 4 different things in my pocket just to do the same things my IPhone does. But when is your dependence on your cellphone enough?

         

   Now personally I don’t have this issue, but I know people who spend an extreme amount of time on their cellphones. Many people will almost neglect their lives outside of their cellphones, with the cellphone almost becoming their real life for them. They will get lost in a world of twitter and Facebook, so much so that they will not pay attention to anything, and will have a negative impact on their lives as a whole.

Many teenagers now also put too much into their cell phones. So much so that if you managed to lose yours, you could lose a lot of valuable information to anyone who just manages to find it or pick it up. Sure you might have a lock on it, but if they were determined enough, they could find a way to unlock it for themselves. Then if they manage to get the phone unlocked, they have access to everything, including all of your pictures, texts, contacts, etc. These can get really personal and can lead to a fate similar to identity theft. Most teenagers think that a simple lock will keep their phone safe from falling into the wrong hands, so they will gladly store valuable information on it.

Modern cellphones were meant to be a luxury, something that allows you to do many things on without having to switch devices or carry around 30 things in your pocket. But now more than ever, cellphones are becoming less of a luxury and more of a necessity.