Oldie but Goldie

Since it is winter break, and I actually have time to do such things, I'm in the process of deleting old crap off of my computer. By crap, I mean snippets of old college projects, photos that can be stored on CD, and other such hard-drive crowders. While doing this, I came across a guest commentary I wrote for the Oregon Daily Emerald in April 2002, my first year at UO. I thought I'd post it for fun. Here's a little game: While you read, try to figure out which part is no longer true.

ODE Guest Commentary
April 11, 2002

In the last week, a cell-phone has rung in almost every class I have attended. Rather than chastising students for this intrusion, most of my professors simply cringe their way through the ringing, grateful when they can go on with their instruction. As this technology continues to develop and cheapen, hard-working, tuition-paying students will continue to be disrupted and disrespected by the inconsiderate few who must, for some reason, be reached via cell phone while in class.

I, for one, would never be caught dead carrying a cell because I’m one of a dying class of people who doesn’t want to be reached at all times. But no one needs to be reached in the middle of class, nor should any serious student want to be. But despite the lack of necessity for such a device, most people will argue that hey “need” their phone with them at all times for reasons that vary in legitimacy. Needing to be reached by children is an acceptable justification, whereas needing to be in constant communication with the girlfriend on whom you recently cheated doesn’t really hold weight.

Since there are no laws against cell phone usage, I can not judge the validity of your reasoning. Therefore, I propose the following rules of cellular phone etiquette on campus:

1) Turn your cell phone off when you enter a class room. At the very least, put it on the vibrate setting. Class is completely disrupted when your phone rings to the tune of “Big Pimpin’” six times before you find it buried in the bottom of your back-pack.

2) Do not use your phone in an area where everyone is silent . . . except for you, who decided to have loud a conversation with your grandmother (You know who you are, Grandma’s boy).

3) Do not make your private conversations public. Cell phone users often force others to eaves-drop on your weird conversations.

Furthermore, shifting focus to professors, I would encourage instituting a zero-tolerance policy on cell phone usage in your class, warning that the owners of ringing cell phones will be asked to leave your class for the day. Or perhaps you could start every lecture with a movie-theatre style message asking students to turn off all electronic devices. Ridiculous times call for ridiculous measures.

With a technology as new as this one, it is hard to know where appropriateness lies, so I will forgive you cell-phone junkies for your lack of respect for me, my peers, and our teachers. However, if we are to keep the lines of normal, face-to-face communication open and genuine, we can’t continue to ignore the intrusion of these devices into our daily lives. I urge the University to enforce guidelines similar to mine in order to preserve its quality of education. For the time being, cell users, please perpetuate good will and academic success by using your cell phone politely.