"Public Display of Disaffection"

            The main purpose of the article “Public Displays of Disaffection” by Anne Kingston is to ultimately raise awareness and alert the reader about how terrible the new generation of teens and adults are for using their phones at inappropriate times. One of the ways that the author shows this is that she displays statistics of a percentage of students at the University of New York that are not fine with texting in front of a friend or guest. Another point she makes is that it is distracting; she puts in other articles and events that are about banning cellular devices completely in schools, restaurants, and other public places. Though this is an extreme look on the situation, the author neutralizes it by also showing example where the “Vancouver Upintheair Theatre [has] a section of the balcony reserved for people to blog and tweet.” Though the author of the article has strong opinions of cell phones and them not being used, I feel that I would have to agree with her about them being a negative part of the new generation. Technology has grown at a great speed and to this day is still growing. Although technology is a wonderful thing for “us” teens and adults, people do not realize the linguistics of the future we are building for our children or for our children’s, children. I find that cell phones have a negative impact towards my life and other people’s lives because it creates a generation of antisocial human beings. In Anne Kingston’s article, she describes it as an addiction. “In a recent survey by dating site Zoosk, a third of singles said they’d left a date early because the other person was ‘constantly glancing at their cell’.”” Soon enough holding a one-on-one conversation between a friend or a date might not last long without the help of a cell phone to look at.

            There are many times where cell phones are acceptable for example when you are at home, during breaks at school, or in a legitimate emergency. Times where it is unacceptable is when a person is directly talking to someone and that person is too busy texting to respond. Another example of when cell phones are unacceptable is during a lecture in university or even in classes during school. I find that schools should not install jammers to discontinue usage within classes’ because as much as all the staff and administration hate cell phones, it can be a positive device for the students and the teachers. It can be positive for example in English Literature 12, majority of students had a cell phone with a camera, in which our project was to take a picture of yourself performing a scene that had to do with a theme of the poem. This situation both benefited the teacher and the students. Cell phone usage in class time is all about self control, if the students are constantly going on their cell phones when teachers are talking that is completely disrespectful but at other times it can both work out. Although there is a lot of controversy about the topic of “cell phones” in general, technology is constantly evolving. With it growing so fast, it can harm and have negative effects towards people. But with all the negative there is always a silver lining found within.