preview

Cell Phones In Public Essay

Good Essays

Cell Phones in the Public Cell phones play an integral role in our lives, and we conduct many useful functions through them daily. If a mother wants to inform her kids that she would be late to pick them up from their school, the cell phone would provide a good medium to communicate that message. The cutting-edge technology of cell phones at your fingertips is a very powerful device that can be used to connect with people from all around the world, and it can also save lives as well in emergency situations. However, public institutions such as schools and libraries have gotten to the point where cell phones have become a major controversial issue. Improper cellular usage by the youth mainly caused this. Not just the youth, but adults too …show more content…

Although the effects of using a cell phone to accomplish a task can be quite advantageous, public officials in these type of public institutions are usually in opposition to this ideal for a variety of reasons. For example, librarians find that cell-phone conversations can be "excessively loud," and that the ringtones of cell phones can sometimes be "obtrusive music" that differs from the short, usual, mundane ringtones (Knecht). Librarians claim that due to these reasons, other patrons of the library are disturbed while reference interviews and educational instruction are disrupted as well. In fact, a library in California went so far as to ban cell phones entirely in the library. This ban involved talking on the cell phone, text messaging, and "ringing tones" (Cell Phones Banned--Really…). However, this ban took place after the library staff constantly gave people notices explaining that they were "violating library policy" (Cell Phones Banned--Really…). The interesting thing about this ban is that second-time offenders (people who violate the ban twice) would be fined two hundred fifty dollars, while third-time offenders would be fined five hundred dollars. Any offense afterwards results in a one-thousand dollar fine. These consequences are certainly outrageous for a library. Public schools also take similar disciplinary action, but surely not to this extent. Throughout the past decade, cell phone usage has expanded to the point where it is

Get Access