Your battery is running low. What's the first thing on your mind? "Does anyone have a charger?" Or even worse, you carry a backup battery on you because your cellphone must always be active and ready. Thus you have become dependent by making sure your connections are never out of reach.... figuratively. How many people on your phone do you text weekly? Monthly? The numbers in your phone gather like dust, files to be used in the future should something happen. What about the numbers in your phone of people you haven't seen in over a year? Does having their number stored away in your anchor to modern society make you still feel 'connected' to them in the back of your mind even if you haven't spoken to them?
The Cellphone is now the largest dependency tool in the world. Children from all age ranges have it. Their parents justify this for 'safety' reasons yet the child flaunts it around like jewellery amongst peers and will sit down and lose themselves in the latest application rather than focusing on homework. Adults are constantly terrified to leave ther cellphone at home. What if someone calls me? What if it's important? What if I need to get a hold of someone?!
Imagine each day you have not left sight of your cellphone yet no one called you, your texts weren't that important, there wasn't any danger you thought there would be if you had left your phone at home.
The feeling of needing your cellphone by your side is addiction. Addiction to the anchor of modern society. This is your safety net, this is what keeps you grounded in what you believe to be a fast-paced technological lifestyle. The idea of something fun passing you by is too much to bear! Quick, where is my cellphone, I can't fathom the idea of boredom without internet access let alone a missed call or text!
Want to try a little exercise? Turn off your cellphone for two hours RIGHT NOW. That's right, you won't do it will you. The slight chance something important (in your mind) actually happening is too great of a chance to pass up to un-anchor yourself from society. As long as your cellphone is on, you are connected just like everyone else. Without it you might teeter off all on your lonesome. But the truth is that if you have to rely on this anchor in the addictive form (not being able to turn it off for a long period of time) then you are already alone.
Now we wonder why people pay these huge phone bills? Because the companies can charge that much and people won't walk away. People have become servants to their cellphone provider. Cellphones are such a crucial part in peoples lives that it seems the one that's coming out in a few months will be outdated by the end of the year. At the end of the day, even with your new phone, you still talk and text the same people. Oh the realization that your phone didn't make any new friends for you.
Your phone might even make you feel important just like all the other anchored down people who bought it. The same people who rush to buy the latest popular item of advertisment, the same people who think having 'fun' is defined by the entertainment industry, and the same people who pay for bottle service at a club where the owners are in the back laughing while their pockets get fat.
The market to sell vanity so people can stroke their image and seek approval amongst his or her peers is at an all time high. Not to mention everyone in that place brought their anchor along with them, for the sound or sight of a text message has become what they believe as the reassurance of their existence. Someone not forgotten about in the midst of everything. Now the owner of the club who's laughing at the vanity fools might need his cellphone, but even he probably doesn't need it as much as he thinks he does.
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