Students Using Cell Phones as Phone Books

Photo credit: Maya Gilliam/The Hilltop Cell-phone companies have more than 173 million subscribers.

Society has developed such a dependency on cell phones that many Americans can't imagine life without them.

In a nation of 295,003,346 people, cell-phone subscribers number 173,003,878, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, an industry group.

In fact, many students use cell phones not only for safety and convenience, but also for a phone book. For them, it seems that traditional telephone books have gone out along with eight-track players and cassette tapes. Instead of writing down a number, it simply is stored in the cell phone and is just a touch-tone away.

"Paper phone books?" asked Janelle Dunbar, a sophomore television production major at Howard University. "Who uses those anymore? Please, I use my cell phone as a phone book."

However, problems might arise when someone loses or breaks the phone. That person has now lost contact with hundreds of people.

This can be avoided with the use of a Subscriber Identity Module, or SIM card, a removable device in the phone that stores numbers and messages and can be transferred to any phone carried by the cell phone company. However, all companies do not offer this technology. Among those that do are T-Mobile and Cingular.

"I recently broke my phone in half," said John Kennedy, a sophomore print journalism major at Howard who is a Cingular customer. "The only thing that saved my life was my SIM card. I can change phones and still keep all of my numbers."

Kennedy might not have been so lucky had he lost his cell phone altogether.

Photo credit: www.environmental-studies.de/ A SIM card provides room for storing hundreds of personal phone numbers.

"I had a SIM card, but my phone was stolen, so it didn't do me any good," said Amanda Nembhard, sophomore broadcast journalism major. She said she was annoyed because she had lost all of her numbers. "I had to start collecting numbers all over again."

Then there are those whose cell phone company does not carry phones with SIM cards. They are at constant risk of losing all their numbers if their phone were to break.

"I recently broke my cell phone," said Rahson Taylor, a sophomore computer information systems major at Howard. "And with the phone went all of the numbers in it. I couldn't call anyone, and I missed a study group because I couldn't contact any of the group members. I just sat in my room and cried!"

Several students said they felt that society had developed an addiction to cell phones.

"Our society has become too cell phone-dependent," said Donta Johnson, a sophomore legal communications major. "For example, my phone broke, so I couldn't call anybody because my cell phone was my only phone book, and if someone called me, I'd have no way of knowing who it was. It was detrimental to my life."

Perhaps this problem could be solved if people backed up their numbers with a traditional phone book. However, students said they found jotting down phone numbers on paper to be annoying and an inconvenience.

"Who has the time to write down every number in a real phone book?" asked Aja Robinson, a sophomore clinical laboratory science major. "And who wants to lug it around everywhere? I use my cell phone as a phone book because I have my cell phone with me at all times. I do try to memorize some numbers, but I don't write them down or anything. If I lost my cell phone, I'd be out of touch with a lot of people and a lot of things."

Charlene V. Drayton is a student at Howard University who writes for The Hilltop.

Posted Dec. 20, 2004