By Mercy S. Agbange
The rate at which the use of cell phones is growing has become immeasurable. There has now become a widespread use if cell phones in public places. In fact, “widespread use” is an understatement. Show me a public place –restaurant, sporting event, shopping mall, supermarket, bank, ATM queue- and I’ll show you a cell phone user who is tapping on his phone to while away time or for pleasure. Even lecture halls are not an exception of places where cell phones are publicly displayed. Most students have formed the annoying ad unacceptable habit of playing with their cell phones while they are in class all in the name of “boring lecture”.
Parents nowadays have formed the habit of getting cell phones for their under aged children. These children are however being exposed to all sorts of explicit and unaccepted sites on the internet without the knowledge of their parents. For a nation of people, whose country is solidly standing on so much cultural beliefs, it’s rather amazing and disturbing that we allow such great show of indiscipline.
People no longer see it necessary to put their cell phones off or in silent mode when they are in public function. The general misuse of cell phones is mind-blowing in our societies today to the extent that a person can pause on the way answering a call and talking on top of his voice, obstructing others who are probably headed somewhere while he remains unconscious to his immediate environment.
It is undeniable that many of us have cell phones and might have started using it at an inappropriate age too but we must ensure to not continue with the trend of overuse of cell phones. We should not continue to extend this abuse over to our children in the future. The ever widening circle of people who make common practice of standing in public places, gazing into nothingness, depreciating the individuals around them and the space they are standing in by deliberately disconnecting from their environment by having their cell phone glued to their ear or in their hands must stop.
Mercy Sokomba Agbange, a final year student in Mass Communication Department of Bayero University, Kano
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