The Polliwog Journal

Just before Christmas we disconnected our land line phone (still not used to that term) in favor of a cell phone for each of us. This small act has had several effects: we’ve become part of the texting generation (which is not defined by age but perhaps by opportunity and need) and we’ve had to remember to take our phones with us always. While we have voice mail, neither of us wants to miss an emergency call from our kids. We’re still old like that, expecting the worst, hoping for the best.

But also, that’s what people with cell phones do: they carry them with them (even, believe it or not, into public toilets). So, we are becoming “always connected.”

I sometimes wonder if this is a good thing or not. When we go to northern Minnesota in the summer, one of the things I like best is that we are essentially cut off from “civilization.” The world goes on and we are oblivious to its passing. Instead we pass time sitting by the campfire–day or night, fishing, playing cards, snoozing in the afternoon sun, or taking a walk in the woods. We care not who might be trying to call.

Back in civilization, the reality is that not many are really trying to call us. We may get one call a day or less. We’re not like some we see in commercials, in movies, or in public who seem literally connected to their phones, always talking, messaging. Still we are aware that our phones are an extention of us now.

For me, this idea of being connected goes beyond having a cell phone. I am connected via blogs, nings, and discussion lists to people all over the world.

The other day one of my freshmen asked, “do you have a lot of friends, Ms Hogue?” The answer is that locally I have about four good friends with whom we go out to dinner, to events and even on vacations. But I also have professional colleagues via the Web who really are friends. I have met some of them, but others I know only from avatars or posted pictures. Nonetheless, we share a passion for English education, for technology integration, for journalism, or poetry, or whatever it is.

In this way, the Web allows us to be connected to people we would never have met otherwise. The Web brings our world–as telephones originally did–closer together. It connects us, links us, empowers us.