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An interesting article about how cell phones have transformed our lives.

Talks about how the use of the cell-phone, (texting, social networking, etc.) is known for its detrimental effects on parent-child relationships.

Food for thought: " A few weeks ago, the world on my phone seemed more compelling than the offline world - more colorful, faster-moving and with a bigger scope of rewards. I still love that world, and probably always will. But now, the physical world excites me, too - the one that has room for boredom, idle hands and space for thinking. I no longer feel phantom buzzes in my pocket or have dreams about checking my Twitter replies. I look people in the eye and listen when they talk. I ride the elevator empty-handed. And when I get sucked into my phone, I notice and self-correct. It's not a full recovery, and I'll have to stay vigilant. But for the first time in a long time, I'm starting to feel like a human again."

This article discusses how a new cell tower in Oklahoma could help young people preserve their culture and language. Before the cell tower, the Cherokee Nation had to struggle to make phone calls and send messages. Cherokee Nation leaders hope that this new addition will spread the Cherokee language by connecting to native speakers.

The article recaps several studies suggesting that the habits encouraged by mobile technology - namely, talking in public to someone who is not there - are tailor made for hijacking the cognitive functions of bystanders.

Interesting article looking at cell use in college classes and the impacts that has on learning.

Born between 1995 and 2012, teens are growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the Internet. There is compelling evidence that the devices we've placed in young people's hands are having profound effects on their lives-and making them seriously unhappy.. Some interesting (and disturbing) findings: 1. A 2017 survey of more than 5,000 American teens found that three out of four owned an iPhone. 2. While teens are physically safer than they've ever been, they're also more isolated and more subject to psychological harm. Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. In addition, the number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been especially steep recently. It's not only a matter of fewer kids partying; fewer kids are spending time simply hanging out. 3. Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy. 4. Girls have also borne the brunt of the rise in depressive symptoms among today's teens. Boys' depressive symptoms increased by 21 percent from 2012 to 2015, while girls' increased by 50 percent-more than twice as much. The rise in suicide, too, is more pronounced among girls. While boys tend to bully one another physically, girls are more likely to do so by undermining a victim's social status or relationships. Social media give middle- and high-school girls a platform to ostracize and exclude other girls 24/7. 5. Sleep deprivation: nearly all teens sleep with their phones in close proximity, and the devices are interfering with sleep: Many teens now sleep less than seven hours most nights. Sleep experts say that teens should get about nine hours of sleep a night; a teen who is getting less than seven hours a night is signific

Five minutes after her husband, Brian, comes through the door each evening around 7, Judith Natelli-McLaughlin calls her three daughters to the table for the family's nightly meal. During dinner, a ringing phone is ignored and no cell phones, iPods or other gadgets are allowed - a considerable feat in this age of distractions.

The problem of looking at our devices nonstop is physiological and social. The average human head weighs between 10 and 12 pounds, and when we bend our neck to use digital devices, the gravitational pull on our head and the stress on our neck increases to as much as 60 pounds of pressure. That common position leads to incremental loss of the curve of the cervical spine. Posture has been proven to affect mood, behavior and memory, and frequent slouching can make us depressed, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. The way we stand affects everything from the amount of energy we have to bone and muscle development, and even the amount of oxygen our lungs can take in. A study in 2010 found that adolescents ages 8 to 18 spent more than 7.5 hours a day consuming media. In 2015, the Pew Research Center reported that 24 percent of teenagers are "almost constantly" online. Adults aren't any better: Most adults spend 10 hours a day or more consuming electronic media, according to a Nielsen's Total Audience Report from last year. "Mobile devices are the mother of inattentional blindness," said Henry Alford, the author of "Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That: A Modern Guide to Manners." "That's the state of monomaniacal obliviousness that overcomes you when you're absorbed in an activity to the exclusion of everything else." Children now compete with their parents' devices for attention, resulting in a generation afraid of the spontaneity of a phone call or face-to-face interaction. Eye contact now seems to be optional, Dr. Turkle suggests, and sensory overload can often mean our feelings are constantly anesthetized. Researchers at the University of Michigan claim empathy levels have plummeted while narcissism is skyrocketing, with emotional development, confidence and health all affected

A in depth formal write up of the experiment ran to test the effects of cellphones and data collected.

Jhaymesisviphotography, CC BY 2.0 Is it any wonder the U.S. Postal Service just lost $1.9 billion in the second fiscal quarter? The age of handwritten letters, making their perishable crawl across the country to an awaiting lover's mailbox, is over.

A article on texting distracting students learning.

May/June 2013 Issue Social Media and Interpersonal Communication By Maura Keller Social Work Today Vol. 13 No. 3 P. 10 Glance around a restaurant and you'll be hard-pressed to find people who don't have their heads down using their cell phones to text, Tweet, or update their Facebook statuses-all while sharing a meal with others at their table.

In this study, we address the communication technologies individuals within romantic relationships are using to communicate with one another, the frequency of use, and the association between the use of these technologies and couple's positive and negative communication.Participants consisted of individuals involved in a serious, committed, heterosexual relationship. The Relationship Evaluation Questionnaire instrument was used to assess a variety of relationship variables. The majority of individuals within the study frequently used cell phones and text messaging to communicate with their partner, with ' ' expressing affection ' ' being the most common reason for contact. Younger individuals reported using all forms of media (except for e-mail) more frequently than older participants. Relationship satisfaction did not predict specific use of media but predicted several reasons for media use. Additional analyses revealed that text messaging had the strongest association with individuals ' positive and negative communication within their relationships. Specifically, text messaging to express affection, broach potentially confrontational subjects, and to hurt partners were associated with individuals' view of positive and negative communication within their relationship. Implications of the results are discussed.

This article addresses the fact that social media could be making us unsocial. The author, Brian Harke, uses an example of a student who attended a professor's dinner party but was so engrossed in his cell phone, he wasn't even aware that his behavior was rude. At the end of the article, Harke provides readers with 13 pieces of advice about how to utilize technology in a way that will help you to be present.

A teacher discusses her opinion of texting on grammar. She talks about how she occasionally finds abbreviations, such as "b4" for "before", in formal papers her students submit. Although she likes what they are able to do with their cell phones, she feels that there should be adult supervision and a limit on usage.

The World Health Organisation counts 430m people as deaf or hard of hearing. Many use sign languages to communicate. If they cannot also use those languages to talk to computers, they risk being excluded from the digitisation that is taking over everyday life. Sign language poses particular issues in re: its translation to either text or speech. Some challenges include improving the machine-learning algorithms that recognise signs and their meaning and developing the best methods to interpret sign languages' distinctive grammars. The applications of such technology could improve the lives of the deaf, for example, allowing them to use their cell phones to search for directions or look up the meanings of unknown signs, without resorting to the written form of a spoken language.