"Alone in a Crowd"

Cell phones are one of the technological advances of the modern world. These hand-held devices allow young people to stay in touch with their friends, allow families to stay connected, and make it easy for people to do business no matter where they are—at the beach, in the woods, or on vacation. They also make it easy for parents to keep track of their children and to monitor babysitters. As a result, the ringing of cell phones is a constant distraction in most public places today—in malls, libraries, movie theaters, and restaurants. There is no escaping the ring tones, the loud voices, and the not so private, private conversations. Therefore, cell phones are not only distractions, but they interrupt real face-to-face conversations and lead to isolation of the individual. For all of these reasons, cells phones should not be allowed to invade the classroom or any other public areas on college campuses.

In libraries, cell phones distract students when they are trying to concentrate on their reading or studying; in classrooms they interrupt instructors who are trying to teach. The thought process is broken as the loud tunes blare in the silence of the libraries or classrooms. Students who previously were concentrating on their work are now looking around to see where the invasive music or ring tone is coming from. Instructors must pause until the distraction has passed and student attention turns to the task-at-hand. Today, there is no place that is quiet, no place where a student can go to work without distraction. Neither the library, nor the classroom, provides the much-needed escape from music, voices, and distraction.

Cell phones also interrupt face-to-face conversations between students in the hallways or lunchroom. As happens on occasion, two students sit chatting over their lunches, when the cell phone of one or both students starts to ring. One student tunes out the other, as he or she fumbles for the ringing cell phone. Other students look around to see whose phone is ringing, which interrupts their interactions with each other as well. The face-to-face conversations are treated as though they are not as important as the ringing telephone. Rarely does anyone ever just click the cell phone off and continue the personal interaction in which they are already engaged. The person who is not on the cell phone is abandoned, mid-sentence, as though he or she were not there, while the companion carries on a loud conversation with an unseen third person.

In addition, using a cell phone is the number one activity during a break or the lunch period. Instead of sitting down at a table and talking with a classmate, students look for a quiet spot where they can call their spouse, significant other, or friend. Students spread out in the hallways, outside the building, and in personal vehicles, each carrying on his or her personal conversation with the person on the other end of the cell phone. As a result, there is not the same camaraderie between students, the same familiarity between those who are studying the same subject, as there was in the past. As a result, students do not get to know each other, do not interact as regularly and depend on each other for academic and emotional support as students did before cell phones became such a fixture in every day life. This reduces the amount of networking between people who will likely be future colleagues.

Therefore, though cell phones are a fact-of-life in the modern era, can keep families and friends connected, and can make it easy to transact personal business, they also pose a significant distraction in the learning environment. If cell phones are banned from public places on college campuses, students will be better able to concentrate on their studies, will not be so distracted, and will engage in more real life, face-to-face interactions. Students who have children will still be able to get urgent messages from their children or child care providers, through the use of more conventional and less invasive means—pay phones and messages from the school administration. Therefore, cell phones should be banned from college campuses in order that students may expand their circle of friends and acquaintances and begin to network with others in their field of study.