How Cell Phones Ruin Society

Cell phones have corrupted today's society with bullying, car accidents, distractions in class, etc. The world would have less drama, suicides and fatalities, if everyone in society would just put down their phones and see what's really going on in the world, then people would have a chance to change it for the better. Cell phones change today's world by being an outlet to harassment and bulling for children of all ages. Cell phones are also dangerous when it comes to using them on the road such as texting while driving or talking on the phone without via Bluetooth. Although cell phones are great to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, it still a dangerous tool to a horrible society.

Anyone nowadays is exposed to cell phones at any age, but by saying that anyone is also manifested to being harassed and/or bullied. According to Teens and Mobile Phones, a 2010 report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, cell phones are a 'new venue for harassment and bullying' for adolescents (Introduction to Cell). Recent studies show that girls are more likely targeted for online cyber bulling than boys by an eight percent difference. This new-found type of bullying also known as cyber bullying is more common found between the ages of twelve and nineteen. A high school girl talked about the fear that cyber bullying is invasive, as mobile technology can be used to reach anyone no matter where they are. 'I think it's terrible. You can't escape the hatred. Even when you go home someone can still pick on you,' she contends. Additionally, a high school boy pointed out that texting eliminates face-to-face interactions, making it easier for bullies to threaten or tease their victims. 'People have bigger mouths through text,' he says. Still, not all agree that bullying via cell phones is a serious problem, insisting that it is 'not really a big deal.' (Introduction to Cell). A girl by the name of Rebecca Sedwick committed suicide in September 2013 due to cyberbullying. Fifteen girls taunted Sedwick by sending her texts saying, 'Why are you still alive?' And 'Can you die please?', these statements drove Sedwick to take her own life (Introduction to Cell). The evidence supports the claim by providing direct quotes from people who have experienced cyberbullying and a true story of a cyberbullying victim who tragically took her own life.

Texting while driving is statically one of the most causes of fatalities today. Nearly 390,000 injuries occur each year from accidents caused by texting while driving, one out of every four car accidents in the united states is caused by texting and driving (Texting and Driving). Cell phones which are now so inexpensive that almost everyone can afford one, stating that means it puts a greater risk to everyone in the world at danger of texting while driving (Texting While Driving). Cellphone use was so uncommon to attract a lot of attention, but today that has made Jurassic change that heavily affected today's society. With a widespread of new technology including cellphones, it's everywhere and people can seem to take their attention away from it for 5 minutes. With that said almost everyone in the world can't seem to keep their eyes off their cellphones on the road. This epidemic brought the attention of researchers and law-enforcement officials to the risks posed by using cellphones behind the wheel. According to a report published by the NHTSA, 5,474 people were killed in the United States due to distracted driving incidents and 448,000 were injured in these accidents (Texting While Driving). Texting while driving is six times more likely to cause an accident than driving drunk. If that doesn’t prove anything nothing else will. Answering a text takes around five seconds, traveling at fifty-five miles per hour, that’s enough time to travel the length of a football field. The evidence supports this claim by providing cold hard statistical facts of the fatalities and injuries due to texting while driving.

Cell phone ownership among students between the ages of twelve and seventeen in the United States has increased rapidly, from forty-five percent in 2004, to seventy-one percent in 2008, and to eighty-eight percent in 2016 (Cell Phones In). A survey in 2016 recorded 435,500 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade, access to smartphones for personal use increased slowly by grade from thirty-six percent in grades three to five, seventy-seven percent in grades six through eight, and ninety percent among high school students (Cell Phones in). With cell phone distractions are a common thing today. Students check their phones in the classroom an average of more than 11 times a day. That can add up to a lot of time spent distracted from schoolwork. And when students are distracted, it’s a recipe for extra stress, frustration, and catch-up time for everyone. Even if set to silent, cell phones can still cause a distraction, since text messaging has become a high-tech method to communicate. Cell phones can also be used by students to access information while taking a test, leading to cheating. Even if a student isn’t caught, this can lead to him or her having a poor understanding of the material in the future and is unfair to students who studied hard to do well. Cell phones also lead to less in-person discussion and fewer learning opportunities. Learning to work together with others is an important part of students’ education and can be lost with too much dependence on cell phones and other digital technology. Students often forget to turn off their phones in class, and ringing noises or text-message alerts disrupt learning. Clearly, there are both pros and cons to students having cell phones in school. Although they can be used as a learning tool in the classroom, this only works if students use them effectively.

In conclusion, cell phones are a danger to society, Steven Spielberg once said “Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we're too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone”. Smartphones and mobile devices became an integral part of the most people live. The influence of cell phones and their effects on human health are still being tested and studied. There is no one single opinion if cellphones bring harm to human’s health. However, addiction and huge reliance on cell phones carry some risks on human development and health. The risks are emotional, physical, social and psychological. Saurabh Sharma noted, “A smartphone is an e-toy designed for the lonely inner child hidden in each and every one of us.” By conducting this research, the author tried to bring attention to potential risks that cell phones can cause to the users and provide some solutions how to mitigate side-effects of cell phones and mobile devices on the users by limiting cellphones/smartphones and handheld devices usage or with special physical exercises. The advancements of modern technology, particularly, handheld devices such as smartphones, cell phones, and mobile devices, etc. are tremendous. (Technology can be.)