Have we grown so attached to our cell phones that without them, it would seem that we just aren't complete? I mean how many times have you left home without your cell phone? I know that myself personally, I never leave home without my phone, even though most days I have very little need for it. So why is it that we just can't seem to be without these little contraptions?

A Different View

As a young person, I grew up with a cell phone in my pocket. My mother however is the exact opposite. She grew up using pay phones on the side of the street. She like many people her age don't conform to today's society where cell phones have become as much apart of you as an arm or a leg!

My brother and I decided to buy her a new cell phone for Christmas and guess what we got in return? Tears!! That's right my mother was so angry at the present we gave her, that it drove her to tears. She said and I quote, "I don't want it, I don't need it, get rid of it!" I couldn't understand at first why she wouldn't want to be in the possession of a new cell phone, a phone that was a lot better than mine at the time.

So I decided to find out why it was that she became so angry after being given a cell phone and this was her answer - "Because now I have to learn how to use it!" Sounds crazy right to you and me, us youngsters? However I thought about it and in the end it made quite perfect sense.

Techno-Fool

There's a word for my mother, a 'techno-fool' and it basically people who seem to have fallen behind with the latest technology. It would seem that a lot of older people(I don't mean that old, more middle-aged!) have started to find it so difficult to use a lot of today's technology, that it actually pains them to even try it!

That's what my mother was going through. She was so scared learning how to use her new cell phone that it actually drew her to tears! I found out later that it was more the fact that she was scared she wouldn't know what to do if someone important called, what if she pressed the wrong button!

I thought about the whole term 'techno-fool' again and wondered if I was ever going to be given this label in the future and although my initial response was "no way!" I later realized that it was in fact inevitable. I mean what is the cell phone going to look like in 10, 20 or 50 years time. It really does scare me, maybe not to tears, but it does scare me!