How many times do you check your cell phone every day? The number is probably close to forty, if not more. According to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, American youth between the ages of 8 and 18 spent about seven and a half hours every day using this sort of technology. That is nearly half of the time spent awake. Now, imagine you misplaced your phone or you had no service. Chances are, you would feel naked, lost, and potentially foolish.
AT&T likes to think so. In a recent commercial, they place numerous people in a bustling train station. As the clock strikes 12, a single man rips off his trench coat and begins to dance. He continues on alone for several seconds until the scene becomes almost awkward. We then realize, as his phone finally gets a new message, that the flash mob in which he was supposed to participate was moved back an entire half hour.
In this commercial AT&T suggests that with their service and products, you will never be the last to know. This poses an interesting question: Are we too obsessed with our phones that we embarrass and humiliate ourselves without them? Are we too reliant on them in the first place? Without our phones, or even with limited service, we feel completely and utterly hopeless and lost. Nonetheless, in AT&T's mind, we, as a society, need to ensure that these seven and a half hours spent glued to out smart phones are hours spent with superior service or we face the consequences of public humiliation in highly-trafficked train stations.
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