by Valerie Rojas
Arts Editor
They can be found anywhere. From street corners, to grocery stores to that car weaving in and out of lanes in front of you on the freeway. Cell phone use is no longer a luxury. It has become a necessity and some people are foregoing the use of the traditional phone line, trading in their land line for a phone they can take anywhere and everywhere.
“A cell phone is always with you,” Marty Garcia, manager of T-Mobile Wireless, located in the Montclair Plaza, said. “You never miss a call.”
The ease and simplicity that cell phones have lent to the average communicator, have made the trend of cell phone usage quite common, especially in or around college towns.
Using cell phones in place of a conventional telephone line is nothing new for college age students who find themselves living in an apartment with two or three of their peers.
Stefanie Milbrandt, a sophomore computer science major at UC Irvine decided that when she and her three roommates agreed to spend the next year of their education as roommates, that they would not be using the same phone line to meet their communication needs.”It just makes things a lot simpler,” Milbrandt said. “They have their phones, I have mine and we never argue about who pays for what.”
Instead of arguing over what phone calls were made by whom, roommates, who each keep their own separate phone lines deal with their expenses in their own ways.
Garcia, who often makes appearances at local universities with T-Mobile, has said that it is the portability and simplicity of today’s phones that make cell phones so increasingly popular. As new advances continue to be made in the cell phone field, customers continue to take advantage. A cell phone is no longer just a cell phone. It has become a camera, a connection to the internet, a video game and a primary source of communication. This sense of simplicity and advancement has helped in the rate of those choosing cell phones over land lines. However, using a cell phone at all times in lieu of a land line presents a problem.
In the event of an emergency, dialing 911 from a cellular telephone connects you to the highway patrol. Because there is no address linked to the cell phone, it is not connected to the normal emergency response system. This may cause a delayed response to any emergencies and a back-up in the flow of calls assisted by the actual highway patrol.
This threat has caused officials to urge cell phone users to retain from using their cell phones in emergency situations that do not occur on public roads.
Cell phone usage has its benefits and its downfalls, those best to be decided by the consumer. However, as cell phone technology progresses, there is no doubt that cell phone popularity will as well.
