Choosing wisely
Section: Launching into Limbo
.........by Jericho. RAJNINGER.............. the Californian daily 2019 /08/08
Hey, Siri.Yes?I have an important question I’d like to ask you. Ask away, Jericho.Can a 19-year-old boy be considered a grown-up if the fourth-most-used application on his cellphone is NBA 2K18? And does it help if the New York Times is not too far behind? Here, I found this on the web.But what do you think about it, Siri? It’s your opinion that counts, Jericho.Sure, but I’d like to hear yours.Playing “Yours” by Russell Dickerson.Noooo! Forget it. I wanted to discuss cellphones, and considering you’re forever trapped inside of mine, I figured you’d be the one to go to. Perhaps that was a mistake. You know what, why don’t I talk and you can just listen for now?OK, talk to Siri.
Looking back at the nine months I spent in Berkeley this year, I don’t think I ever, not once, inhabited a phoneless space — lecture hall, library, dorm room, lounge, cafeteria, lawn, public bathroom or otherwise.
In fact, let me rephrase: Not a second in a day passed without one of my peers using a phone in my presence. Even in settings where phones were prohibited, my classmates and I would all steal glances at our screens every few minutes, such that, inevitably, there was at least one person in the room on a cellular device at any given moment in time.
Over the course of the year, this omnipresent preoccupation with phones — a result of living among thousands of screen-addicted teens — grew rather exhausting. So exhausting that even I, a fellow screen-addicted teen, began to take notice — you there, Siri?
Wherever you are, that’s where I am, Jericho.
Right, OK, just checking.
When I returned home for the summer, I returned to a household occupied only by my parents — two 50-year-olds who do not, in fact, have unhealthy relationships with their cellular devices. ...
- Jericho Rajninger writes the Thursday column on the liminal space between childhood and adulthood during a summer home from college
- https://www.dailycal.org/author/jrajninger/
READ ONE of his columns...
Recomended.... You're a social distancer
And I did — for a time, at least.
Soon after these rather explicit restrictions were imposed, however, my friends and I decided it was a good idea to go out for Korean barbecue. Disappointed that the semester was coming to a premature close, we wanted to celebrate. If you’ve ever eaten Korean barbecue before, you know it’s a rather foolish meal to share with nine other people in the midst of a global pandemic.
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