Everybody is familiar with the morning or mid-day ritual of scrambling around your dorm room collecting everything required to sustain yourself during a long day of alternating between classes, the library and the dining hall of your choice. You can only pray that you’ve grabbed everything you could potentially need to spare yourself from trudging through the tundra more times than absolutely necessary. After assembling the obvious items such as notebooks, textbooks and your fleece-lined, wind-resistant winter coat, your attention turns next to the most important accessory a college student could have – those coveted technological devices. How is one expected to survive without a Razor or Palm Pilot?
This past holiday season, as you gathered with your loved ones and shared in the time-old tradition of unwrapping gifts, chances are either you or somebody in your family received one of these technological toys.
Okay, so maybe not all of us have a Palm Pilot, but there are two crucial things no one should ever dream of leaving their dorm room without – a cell phone and some type of music facilitator, such as the ever popular iPod or another type of MP3 player. Although these are the two staples that most people cling to at all times during the intensive, everlasting four day school week, the weekends or special circumstances warrant the use of a digital camera, an item which is dutifully added to the collection of toys. There is nothing more important than capturing that priceless moment when your friend trips and falls flat on his or her face so that it can be posted online for all to see the next day. I think it’s safe to assume that life would not be the same without cell phones, iPods and digital cameras.
If you’re not yet convinced that these devices essentially control our lives, consider this scenario. Let’s say one evening you’re out with your friends having a great time, but you realize you’ve forgotten your digital camera and impulsively decided to run back to your dorm room to grab it so that you can document the night. With camera in hand, you head back to where you parted with your friends only to discover that they are no longer there. Instinctively, you whip out your cell phone to contact your so-called friends who ran off rather than stand around in a negative 40 degree wind chill, and find out where they’ve gone, but to your horror your cell phone has completely died, it won’t even turn on. Uh-oh, looks like somebody is really in trouble now. You wander aimlessly around for a while looking for your friends, but unfortunately they are nowhere to be found. There’s nothing left to do except admit defeat and head back to your dorm, crank some music and pray that someone comes looking for you.
How tragic is that? Because of these technological toys, your evening is basically ruined and you end up going to bed at midnight while your friends are out having the time of their lives.
Despite the resentment you may feel at times toward your phone when it dies, or your iPod when the headphones break from too much use, you’d be devastated if you didn’t have them at all because your comfortable lifestyle would be significantly altered. God forbid you have to take your daily run without your favorite workout playlist pumping in your ears.
