Our
View: Hey Marty, get off the phone
and party
College parties have taken a turn for the worse.There was once an era when college
festivities were the stuff of legend. To escape academia, people gathered around
the keg. They drank from it. They stood on it. They rolled it down the stairs.
There was once a time when people gathered face to face in social interactions
in a weekend ritual affectionately known as the party. People drank from cans,
bottles and shot glasses. They got drunk. They wobbled around. Sometimes they
fell down the stairs.
There was an era? People drank? A turn for the worse?
Is the Daily Forty-Niner saying there are no more kegs, no more cheap beer and
no more loud inebriates in today’s student scene?
Of course not. What we are saying is such occurrences are becoming less frequent,
that the college party is largely not the raging hoo-rah it once was.
There are two reasons for this: the infamous cellular phone and MySpace.
Parties are a chance to talk to old friends, meet new ones or even find potential
love interests. But now, with many people talking endlessly on cell phones during
shindigs, what are the chances for any of the aforementioned to happen? Probably
less.
What is most disturbing is that cellphone conversations are not just happening
in the pre-party roundup (finding the location, inviting guests, getting “refreshments,” etc.)
but non-stop throughout. In the course of a three-hour party, some people are
on the phone for at least half of it.
What the heck are they talking about for so long? Parties should be about speaking
to the people around you, not conversing with voices far away across some cellular
oblivion.
Even worse is that some, after returning from the phone call, are in a worse
mood because of what was said during the conversation. Parties are supposed to
be enjoyable, temporary escapes, but cell phones are making that getaway impossible.
They are creating and spreading unnecessary drama, conflict and excessive communication
in a setting never intended to have any.
Advice for your next party, extreme cell phone users: get off the phone, do not
settle disputes during party time and use it for emergencies or planning only.
Break open the beer box, ravage the rum or sip on that soda (for all the non-drinkers
and blessed designated drivers out there).
The second deterrent to today’s party is MySpace, the fascinating phenomenon
worthy of hardcore academic study involving its personal and societal effects
regarding communication.
But the odd thing is that as much as it connects people, it also keeps them apart.
Instead of socializing in the real world, many of us spend hours wandering its
cyber network.
Though MySpace helps users find parties and events, what is depressing is that
at all-too-many events, MySpace is the true life of the party. No more “Animal
House” Bluto smashing a guitar to get our attention. Let’s check
out Tom’s latest pictures instead or any others from the numerous online
MySpace million-friend celebrities.
Granted, MySpace at parties probably cannot be found as frequently as excessive
cell phone usage, but the fact remains. Neither deserves a rightful place on
the college party scene.
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