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Junior Adam Smith talks en his reN phcfle Sept. 27vvhile getting coffee at Mdnght 01. This was Smith'sfirst )Wr \M1:h a cell phJne Noah DarnellFreshmen Jake Mendenhall and Hedi Tabor take abreak en Ire front lawn to catch up wth their frierdsSept. 26. StuOOnts a:ill be seen on trer ph:m on alparts of campus during all hours Noah DarnellSophomore Jeb Bell takes tme on Sept 26 to call a!nerd Wrffi I talk on tre ptuB. cutside on tre swrgis my favcxite place to 00,' Bell sad Noah DarnellStudent gets technologically connectedThe stress of meeting with people for assignmentsor going to the movies tends to be hard enough"vith a cell phone. Now imagine not having one andnever being able to knO\,v if people have already arrived,if the time was changed for the meeting or if there wasan emergency .. That was dle life of junior Adam Smith who went fromclass to class without receiving a text message, withoutmissing a call from his mom and without that annoyingvibration coming from his bag. ."My parents got a very basic cell phone plan about 10years ago so that my brother and J could call them when theywere working, and we just kept that plan the whole time,"Smith said. 'We were all usually around phones anyways. 1 hadthought about getting one when I came to school, but it justseemed more expensive than it was worth at the time."However, what about basic communication? With theworld being so communication driven, how could anyonemanage to get anything done \\~thout a cell phone?"It can be challenging to stay up to date on what thecurrent plans are with my friends or to really just talk toanybody dlat I know," Smith said.So in a culture that tends to be deadline and meetingoriented, how did a guy without any constant source ofcommunication get around?''The phone in the room on the landline made things alittle easier, but that was assuming that J was in the room,"Smith said. "It put a little more o f the burden of planningon my friends and made them have to put a little more effortinto the relationship since they would have to come find meand wait for me."Smith, however, never seemed too put off by aU of theextra work that he and his friends had to put forth in orderto hang out or just catch up with one another."A lot of it was just [a matter ofj planning ahead oftime, and often times J would just be with a friend that didhave a phone, so 1 could find out what was going on thatway," Smith said.T here was of course the occasional inconvenience ofmissing a friend or a group meeting because of not beingable to reach him."There were a few boring afternoons in there [when rcouldn't meet up with friends]," Smith said.In spite of these inconveniences, Smith was not one ofthose people who depended on the ability to contact his momor anyone else while on the road. Smith never worried aboutrunning into problems on a drive home or finding himself·without a means to dial roadside assistance."1 was so used to just not having a cell phone that itwasn't a big deal," Smith said concerning his isolated tripshome. ''Plus I am a fairly large guy, so T didn't have to worryabout getting in trouble tOO much."Nevertheless, Smith recogrllzed that there could be someadvantages to cell phones."There were a few times I could tell that [having aphone] would be quite helpful to my social life at college,"Smith said.T his past summer, Smith broke down and gOt a cellphone. Welcome to mainstream America, Adam.Farran Martinseniors 77