Signs of cellphone addiction syndrome

Signs of cellphone addiction syndrome

A few years back I attended a talk by the noted travel writer, Paul Theroux. Theroux said that he always left his cell phone behind when he went travelling, because it linked him to the world he knew. He wanted to lose himself in the new places he was travelling. I admired his philosophy, but on my own stint as a travel writer, I carried two cell phones, just in case one was out of network area. And like Theroux mentioned, the cell phones were a link to the world I knew; they were a source of security. I was reminded of Theroux’s words last week when after a full night’s charging, my battery suddenly died on me. It was 4am and I had 15 minutes to leave for the airport. It was a well-planned, day-long trip to Delhi. I would be picked up at the Delhi airport, driven to an event, and dropped back in the evening. Still, my mind went into overdrive. ‘How do I get in touch with the contact person? Wait a minute, I don’t even have the contact person’s number. It’s in my inbox which I can’t access if my phone is dead. Even if I write it down, how do I call? They will have pay phones at the airport, right?’ That’s when a thought that was equal and opposite in reaction hit me. ‘Didn’t people travel before the cell phone era? So what if I can’t find my pickup? Anecdotal evidence suggests that most people are nice. Someone will lend me a phone. Worst case scenario, I’ll have to get to the venue myself.’ Not that I had even bothered to check where the event was being held, just in case I had go on my own. You see, I had stopped bothering my brain with such details. The assumption being that a phone call would bail me out if I got stuck. As I got into the aircraft — with no cell phone to switch off — I realised that staying in touch with a cell phone had gone from being a convenience to a necessity. Not that this is a bad thing. The tool does help us deal with unpredictable situations, like if the pickup hadn’t turned up at the airport. But cell phones haven’t made us any more capable of dealing with unpredictability that life dishes out. In fact, they may have dulled our ability to improvise, made us more wary of unfamiliar situations. Perhaps someone else wouldn’t have worried as much as I did. But most of us would have to do some mental readjustment when the phone conks out. The solution is not to quit using your cell phone. We should rather see a dead cell phone as an opportunity to exercise our muscles of spontaneity. And who knows, even a simple trip to Delhi may yield a story as interesting as Theroux’s.