Just as I was packing up my books at the library and getting ready to leave for dinner with my roommate, a devastating message flashed across my phone screen: 20%- low battery. Knowing that my phone often has a tendency to completely shut off very promptly after this warning shows, I panicked but maintained my collected exterior and made my way to dinner.
Sure enough, as I was standing in line a few minutes later and perusing Instagram, my phone died. I proceeded to make it through the meal and the 10-minute walk back to our house mentally unscathed- though I did feel slight stabs of jealousy when I watched my roommate open a few Snapchats and reply to a text.
The moment I got back to my room and revived my mobile device, I saw a missed call from my mom, a Snapchat from my sister, and a message from my friend at school in Ohio telling me all about her sorority event from the night before. In between Shakespeare readings and my Composition Theory paper, I caught up with them all, hearing about their days through various forms of communication, and feeling as though I was right with them much of the time.
Is it a little sad that I truly felt something missing when I had to go about an hour without my phone? Sure, probably. That is kind of alarming.
Then again, in the world in which we live today, it’s not as though many of us even know a world without social media. In the same vein, we have been in possession of cell phones and perusing the Internet for years. It’s what we’re used to, what we know.
I don’t feel guilty about being on my phone when I use it to spend two hours FaceTiming with my sister so I can see her new dorm room and hear in every possible detail how the first few weeks of her freshman year of college have been going. We have never been this far apart from each other for this long a time, and it is comforting to know I can hear her voice and see what she’s doing virtually any second of any day.
As long as I can manage having dinner with one of my best friends without having a minor panic attack about the whereabouts of every single person in my life, I think I’ll be okay. Plus, how else was I supposed to get a virtual tour of my sister’s first frat party?!