Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Cell Phone Surprise


     I am compelled to touch on the “cell Phone” topic again, as I’d thought I’d seen it all. I hadn’t. First of all, one of my fellow students, a 20-something woman, is so attached to her cell phone, that she carried it in her palm while turning in a paper to our professor. That little trip took all of about 20 seconds!!!  Does it get more bizarre than this? It does. The young man who sits next to me in class (he sits in the first row, like me and all of the other serious students) asked to see an essay I’d written, as he was confused by his own notes. I didn’t have a problem with this, as he applies himself like I do, and we’d compared notes before. I met him after class in the student commons, handed him my paper, and before I had a clue what was happening, he took a picture of it with his phone! ”What are you doing???????”  He asked to look at my paper, not take a picture of it!  “Oh, don’t worry", he explained, "I’m not going to plagiarize…” I was absolutely incredulous, and insisted that he erase it immediately after reading. (Wasn’t that the name of a movie-“Erase After Reading”? Oh no, it was “Burn After Reading”, as in books. Aren’t they nearly obsolete now too?)  
     When I came home I excitedly conveyed this occurrence to my 20-something son, who felt I was completely overreacting. He informed me that the people where he works take pictures of their schedule with their phones. No sympathy here. I need to discuss this with another 50-something, so I tell my friend “K”. She wasn’t nearly as surprised as I was, and enlightened me as to how young people take pictures of their parking spots and all kinds of things that our generation wouldn’t even think of.  (There’s that age thing again).
     Still I wonder, isn’t there some kind of cell phone/photo etiquette that would apply here? Or do I need to copyright my essays?

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