Hook, line and sinker

When checking my iPhone, I am perceived to have something to do, therefore I must be important. The perception of my human capital or cultural capital becomes higher. I also like having the ability to distract myself from talking to people. I can engage with a screen rather than a person. A narcissistic sense of importance comes when believing one has various forms of capital through the number of text messages and phone calls that demand one's attention. Does this not determine personal value to a certain degree?

There is an immediacy of contact that we demand when we use a mobile phone. We no longer have to wait for people to be somewhere in a place to speak with them, nor do we need to wait for them to be ready to be contacted. By right of the mobile, we expect their full attention there and then. We demand their focus and deny their freedom to choose when and where they will do things.

When the mobile rings, we cast aside all other activities and thoughts and position the mobile on a pedestal to which we bow down and worship. We need to live in the present and focus on the relationships of the moment. The technology of the day may enhance our lives but it should not comprise our life, our thoughts and our activity.

Hook, line and sinker
The social expectation belies a financial commitment. Many young people exceed their ability to pay their mobile phone fees because of the prevalence of their (over)usage which has been perpetuated by capitalist notions of success.

Marketing provides the hook. The prevalence provides the line. The sinker is the gullibility that ‘one cannot do without’. The bind is the capitalist compulsion to continue to pay, exacerbated by the monthly constructs to which we subscribe.

Are our lives improved by ubiquitous use of mobile phones? The mobile phone is one symbol of our fetish on consumerism and materialism, and the compulsion we have to be constantly entertained by technology. There is no doubt that it increases our sense of satisfaction: “No amount of inventiveness or energy is excessive if it results in the creation of leisure, the increase of personal freedom, or the provision of physical comfort” (Watts, 2003, p. 19).