The choice of my topic for my Literacy Narrative came easy to me because the story of getting my first phone is a hilarious one. Looking back, it was such a big deal but it wasn’t even my first smartphone. It was my basic flip phone, which didn’t have unlimited texting, internet, games, anything!!! Yet it went on to cause World War III within my household, and still to this day can cause arguments.
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To give you a little background on me, I am the youngest of 3 girls and we are each two years apart. This basically meant my dad turned into a softie at the young age of 19, when my parents had my oldest sister , having to take care of all of us (and to give him credit, most of the time put up with all our crap and just us in general). Prior to having me, the doctors told my parents throughout the whole pregnancy, I was going to be a boy. So my dad was thrilled to finally have a little boy, but as you can see that didn’t happen. Still, I was like his little boy, I played all the sports and was like his little buddy. But also as the baby, he typically had an even extra soft spot for me.Since I was his little buddy, this meant I got away with a lot more than any of my sisters had. My parents weren’t extremely strict growing up but they had few rules we had to follow. Most of the rules weren’t hard it was just about waiting until a certain age before we could do something. Such as we couldn’t get an AIM account until the 5th grade, I believe. But when my middle sister was in 5th grade, she was so excited to finally get her AIM account. When interviewing her, she spoke about how exciting it was because “ it was a time when we didn’t have cell phones, so this was a way to communicate with people when we came home from school.” The minute she was making hers, me being me, complained I had to wait two years and my dad being the softie he was, turned and said to me “ If you want one now, you can.” I got one then and truth be told, I didn’t even use it. It wasn’t until I was about her age that I really did use it because when she got hers, none of my friends even had one, so I had no use for it anyway. More and more I think about it , I really think it was just the fact of getting something earlier than I was actually supposed to. While little things like this continued, my sister seemed to not by bothered by or at least she wasn’t letting me know that she was bothered by these occurrences.
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Until finally the BIG blowup came. My parents rule was that we weren’t allowed to have a phone until 7th grade and even then, we were really only supposed to use them to call with emergencies or to text let them know that we decided to stay after for an activity at school. Well my sister finally got to 7th grade and she could not wait until she was able to get her phone. You could imagine the excitement because growing up, we all wait for the time we are old enough to get a phone, no matter how cheesy or lame it was now looking back at the types of phones. To continue, we went to the mall to let her pick her phone out. It may not have been exactly on her birthday, but I remember it being close to it, like maybe we were out celebrating her birthday dinner or something. Well, in we walk into the Verizon store, and she went on her way looking at all her options. When she finally picked a flip phone she liked, my parents went to talk to the people about adding her to the plan. |
Finally, they came back with her phone, but much to her displeasure, emphasis on the her, they had another phone. “I remember looking and them and asking “What is that?”" she states, saying she remembered going into the store and seeing there was a deal going on. Most likely BOGO. Never did she imagine though that because she got this specific phone, they would give me the other one. “I was pretty angry, it was really unfair” is how she explained her feeling towards the day, still, almost 10 years later. Now, to my defense, I wasn’t actually allowed to have the phone that year. I used it if I was ever staying after, but I didn’t have the phone on me at all times. I wasn’t allowed to truly have the phone until the following year when I was in 6th grade, which according to her is “ still unfair because it is a year earlier than any of us were allowed to have phones.” While this seems like such a stupid thing even now, I truly believe it was the idea of my parents letting me always get things earlier that still t i c k s my sister off to this day. As you can hear at the end of my interview, when she asked how I felt and I was in the middle of answering and she stops the recording and walks away. It is clear she get pretty annoyed with me on topics such as these.
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As you can see, for both my sister and I, phones, gr ow ing technology, the internet, all of it has been used for connecting and communicating. To continue, as phones began expanding and the more there was to do, the more I was able to maintain more relationships. Growing up, I spent most of my time with my neighborhood best friend, then suddenly right before we entered high school she moved. AHHH. HOW COULD SHE!?!?!?
Phones were a way to keep in contact with her but also create new relationships with new people. When I first meet people I am typically pretty shy and insecure until I feel comfortable around you. Technology helped a lot with this because I was able to communicate and get to know people that I had met at school better through different forms of social media. Then the more I felt like I knew these people, I was comfortable with letting them into my life. Not to say I needed the technology to make new friends, but these gr ow ing technologies eased the pressure of making friends, but also had the power to cause problems with the growth of social media. The more social media and different apps become popular, the more power they have to hurt people. and allow people to CAUSE more problems for NO reason, whatsoever!!!!!
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Snapchat is a key example of this because, so many times people get caught being places they lied they weren’t going to be at, or people are uninvited to places which later comes out on Snapchat, causing problems between friends. Personally, I think Snapchat is great and I love to keep in contact with my friends and see how they are doing at school. But I can also see the other side of it where, I can get serious F O M O , and for those who don't know, this stands for fear of missing out. On watching my best friends Snapchat story even when I know she’s miles away... Today, I think gr ow ing technology as well as social media helps me keep a majority of my relationships. As I stated before, I love going on Snapchat and seeing what my friends are doing at school, and being able to put up stories to allow my friends to see how/what I am doing. I also keep in contact with a lot of my family who lives in various states in the US through Snapchat. I love being able to go on and see how my cousins are doing, or seeing videos of their baseball games, it makes me feel like I am there to actually see how they are doing. I also really love Instagram for this reason. My high school best friends all go to different colleges, so sometimes just being able to see pictures of them makes me feel closer to them. |
Various growths in the technology come in the forms of video chatting, group chats, various apps. Video chatting is one of my favorite because as great as it is to talk to people on the phone when you miss them, to actually be able to see their faces and feel like you are in person talking is one of my favorite things. There is also now an app called “Houseparty” where you can video chat with more than one person. This makes conversations even more meaningful because I can talk to all of my friends across the country all on one screen while seeing their faces. That is one of the reasons I love group messaging as well because you can simultaneously be talking to more than one person. I alway hated back in the day, having the same conversation with more than one person in various areas. But it also comes with more inclusion to just our phones. There is a guarantee that you will look up no matter where you are and people will be walking just scrolling on their phones. I can personally say I do this myself, it’s easier to just look at your phone and walk then to try and awkwardly avoid people and eye contact or to scroll through Instagram while waiting for your coffee to be made instead of chatting with strangers around you. Which is a problem. Our society I believe has such a issue with face to face interactions. My parents always complain how now we will just text our friends and say we are outside because before you would've had to go and knock on their door (OMG could you imagine!!) and god forbid converse with their parents or family!!
For me, through it all, phones have always been a way to communicate better. Keep in touch. Stay connected. But ironically enough, sometimes phones are the reason for our lack of social connections and real life communication. SO.... next time you're w a l k i n g down the street, THINK ABOUT IT because sometimes there is more around you than that little thing in your hand. Look up, COMMUNICATE WITH THOSE AROUND YOU!!