The Painful Text Message

BLUEMEM #3-Inducted into the Exclusive Cell Phone Society

         The first day of Junior High School is a day that I can never forget no matter how hard I try. I had a lot of emotions built up for that day, I was nervous because I did not know if I would end up in a classroom with the friends I had already made in elementary school. I was happy because I got to wear the new pair of sneakers my cousin purchased for me the night before and also a little pissed because my new uniform required me to wear a yellow button down shirt that was as bright as Big Bird’s feathers( I am not a fan of bright colors). BUT!! The thing that made me most happy about about starting Junior High was the fact that I was finally receiving my first cell phone. 

All of my friends already had a cell phone; most of them received their phones over the summer. When the first day of school arrived and my mother handed me over my phone, it felt great to finally have my phone in my possession; it was mine and I was going to use it as much as I could. My middle school didn’t allow students to bring in their cell phones so I had to hide it in my bag and keep it hidden for most of the day. When lunch time finally came, I was able to take out my phone and get all of my other friends numbers. It felt so good to finally be apart of cell phone society. Me and my friends texted each other during lunch time for fun, but we were extremely cautious of our surroundings because if we got caught with our phones they would be taken away from us until the end of the year.

By the end of the school day, I was texting any and everyone I could. As I walked home, I texted my sister telling her how my day went. I texted my best friend telling her that I would call her on the phone later that night and I texted my cousin to inform her that I finally received my first cell phone. It was a great day. I had gotten though my first day of classes, didn’t have any homework and had a phone that I could devout all of my attention to. In the midst of all of my texting however, I failed to acknowledge what was going on around me. While I walked close to the edge of the sidewalk, I had my face completely into my cell phone. When I was finally done with my text message, I hit the sent button and as I looked up, I bumped head on into a pole. My nose was throbbing and I felt a lump start to develop right in the middle of my forehead.

In his writing “The Nostalgia of the Young” Turkle discusses how the desire to constantly be connected to our phone or the internet has become so apart our identities and sense of self that it is almost impossible to rid ourselves of this dependence. My memory of the day when I received my first cell phone supports this idea because as soon as I became apart of what I saw as the “cell phone” society, I could not rid myself of this desire to always be connected. I walked right into a pole and hurt myself because I wanted to let others know so badly that I was now available at their every text.