Day 6

It was a long hot day here in our AC-less condo. Not wanting Jari to fall short on her 100 days of blogging goal, I am chipping in to help out. While I spent most of my day studying, I took a few hours to research phone plans. What I found was rather disgusting and downright upsetting. Did you know that most of the phones sold these days require you to have a $10-30/month extra data plan simply to operate it? Why does it cost so much money just to be able to talk to friends and loved ones a few times a month? The real question is why the people on the front of the brochures for the various phones plans look so happy. Do they really like paying $150-200 a month on a cell phone so that their family can talk, text, and surf the net on their phone? I bet the real reason they are smiling is that our spending makes them rich. My favorite part of the shopping experience was at an AT&T store that advertised a sub-species of phones called "multimedia phones." They are set up with links for Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. Great big, for all to see, was a sign in this section that reads "INSTANT SOCIAL GRATIFICATION" - the complete irony of the advertisement is that it portrayed several youngsters, maybe around the age of 18, sitting in a group of friends, all typing away on their phones. I'm not sure how it happened, but apparently virtual socializing has become more gratifying than real socializing. For me, I looked forward to seeing my friends. Now kids get together to hang out and sometimes don't even interact that deeply with one another. I think that family plans today are like the bubblegum cigarettes I remember seeing in the gas station when I was a little kid. They only serve one purpose, to get kids hooked now - to normalize the atrocious expenditure and make it seem so normal or commonplace that it no longer is a want, but a need. There are a few youth that attend church with us that are so hooked on texting, that they have withdrawal symptoms/cravings when they don't have their phone due to a failed battery. Suddenly they are disconnected and feel vulnerable. When I ask them to turn off their phones they look at me or respond the way you would expect a smoker to if you told them to throw their cigarettes away - like nicotine addicts that fidget at times while craving their cigarettes - or in their case - a silly phone. One little shot of LOL or BRB and... peace... or at least it satisfies for about 30 seconds to a minute. Have real relationships and social skills been replaced with digital ones? Have the youth of today really grown up without learning that real relationships take time to cultivate - not simple convenience in a text message? 

I cannot help but think about the last moment I spent with my dear Grandma Nielson before she passed away. She was in a nursing home in Orem, UT and though I had just seen her a day or two before, I decided to go wheel her to dinner and just chat with her and the rest of the residents at her dinner table. I was not sure what we were going to talk about, after all, she had dementia and I did not know the other ladies she ate dinner with, but still, I decided it would be worth the attempt. What I thought might be an awkward 30 minutes blossomed into one of the most precious 1.5 hours of my life. I met some amazing women with some amazing life stories. I didn't sit at the table with them during dinner and text people out in the make-believe land of Verizon/Sprint/AT&T - I just enjoyed the moment. 

Now I don't mean to say that technology is the root of social evil - for it can be very useful at keeping in touch with loved ones and friends. I know because I do send text messages to my parent's email accounts or to my sibling's phones. I've even sent text messages to my in-laws. Texting has made spending time away from Jari while I study for school less lonely. So it does serve a purpose. I simply wish to ask why we have normalized it to the point that $150 a month has become a small thing. Ten years ago most of us would have laughed at the thought of paying that kind of bill each month. To put it in perspective, if you have a mortgage of $165,000, 6% APR 30 Year, and you put the $1800 you would have spent towards your phones towards your house instead, you would pay off your house 8 years sooner and save over $16,000 in the process. So while I think that phones are great, that texting can be wonderful, and that internet on the go can be a great tool - perhaps phone companies are charging too much. But these are the ramblings of one named Fred. Only in my dreams could we 'go on strike' to lower the price of service. And sadly - I missed the mark of posting before midnight. I hope this still counts. So until some greater moment when I can see you face to face and not simply on Facebook, I bid farewell with this profound thought: T2UL.