From Snapchat to Instagram and Twitter to Facebook, the advent of the smartphone is a magical thing that has revolutionized the way that the world socializes. Believe it or not however, there are still people walking the grounds of the University of Oreong who are still plagued with phones that flip and screens you don’t touch.
University of Oregon Sophomore Karinne Evans is one of those people.
“It’s actually rough sometimes because everyone has Instagram, Facebook and Twitter on their phones — I’m a very big fan of Twitter — and I’m always juggling two devices,” Evans said.
Evans is fighting through the adversity that her phone has beheld her by using an iPod Touch to acquire the mobile apps that the rest of the world enjoys from the convenience of its smartphones. That way she doesn’t have to live through the horror story that would be life without Snapchat.
But that doesn’t mean that emotional trauma doesn’t still reach her from her emoji-less cellular device.
“I feel like a dinosaur when I’m using it,” Evans said. “Outdated is a good word to use. My heart feels outdated. I don’t have emojis and I’m a very big fan of emojis.”
Evans says that one of the things about iPhones that she envies most is “the color that your box turns when you send a message. My phone doesn’t have that. My phone is trash.”
Junior Spencer Tanner recently upgraded to a smartphone from a flip phone and has been basking in his mobile spoils ever since.
“All of my affairs are in one place. I got email, I got a UO app, I got the Snapchat, I got the Youtube, I got the internet, I got my games, I’m killing it on Temple Run,” said Tanner of his smart phone.
Although Tanner acknowledged that his life is “a million times better” now that he has a smartphone, he still can’t help but remember the isolation that he experienced socially when his phone flipped. He remembers the toil that he used to experience and that Evans is currently enduring.
“It’s crucial. I learned from experience,” Tanner said of having a smartphone in today’s world. “I learned the hard way that not only are you a step back in terms of the social aspect of staying connected, but also people literally, verbally ridicule you. They actually single you out and ridicule you. It’s actually like a form of harassment. I was bullied for having my dumb phone believe it or not, and it was hurtful.”
Although it is easy to laugh at and make fun of those without smartphones, it’s important to be there for and support them through their trying lives. After all, there has been a time in every man and woman’s life when they couldn’t tweet on the go or capture the moments in their lives with a square photograph and stunning image filters for the world to see.