Over Reliance

What do the following activities - waiting for a friend, travelling on a bus, being bored at lectures, and checking the time have in common? The answer is simple. You will notice that you'd have your cell phone in your hand! Yes, we are that reliant and tied to our phones. Not convinced? Well think about it. Everytime you leave home, what would you always bring besides the wallet and keys? Yes. The phone! If you go out without your phone, wouldn't you feel this empty feeling, like what you'd experience when you forget your homework. In fact, we are all so reliant on our phones that we barely remember any numbers anymore!

Australians, I find aren't so attached to their phones. They hardly even whip out their phones and even normal phone conversations with them are very brief. In contrast, we Singaporeans (along with our Japanese, Korean and Hong Kong counterparts) are so reliant on our phones that every time we have nothing to do, we feel the urge to message someone. Looking at the trains here, it seemed quite odd at first, when I didn't see anyone at all with their phone in their palm. Even the frequent variety of ring tones weren't present apart from a token phone ringing albeit with a boring ring ring sound.

During my trip to Mudgee (a rural town of 5000 people 300km North of Sydney), I cracked up when an advertisement for "scary ring tones" came on. It was extremely corny and very lame but it struck me that this was how Singapore was like when cell phones were first introduced. I guess give Australia another 5 or 6 years and people everywhere will be phone-reliant. Perhaps then, the calling rates would drop with the increased demand.