Remember the fad toys we all used to play with and show off to our friends during fourth and fifth grades, like beanie babies and electronic pets like Tamagachis? Every day in fourth grade at least one student would walk into Ms. Allen’s fourth grade classroom at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School with the latest, most expensive little stuffed animal that cost five cents to make by child labor from Cambodia, but which cost the poor parent of that child $20 to buy.

The little brats-err-students would compare their levels of superiority according to how many beanie babies they each had. In fifth grade, we all had graduated from the childish play things of stuffed animals to electronic animals, such as the Tamagachi, the pet you would take care of that fit conveniently into the palm of your hand. Perfect for evading the hawk-like eyes of your teachers as you fed your little pet under your desk. Being a strange child, I was revolted by all these infernal little toys because they seemed so pointless. But then again I amused myself by reading, so of course no one took me seriously, not that they do today.

Many of my fellow classmates would claim that they have grown out of playing and showing off such trivial toys and gadgets as beanie babies and Tamagachis. Those are childish amusements of the past, according to many. What they don’t seem to understand is that they in fact haven’t graduated from such toys, but continue to play with them right now. The only difference is that these toys are much more expensive and cost their parents a lot more money. No, not a Game Boy or a PSP, but cell phones.

Everyone has them, and it seems like we can’t function as productive human beings in society without them. At least that’s what everyone makes it out to be. In elementary school a student’s social status depended on whether or not they could obtain the latest, ridiculously expensive, worthless toy. These days, a student’s importance within their school is based on whether or not they have the latest ring tone of the newest song that debuted on TRL the day before. Or it’s based on whether they have the hottest new cell phone, equipped not only with an MP3 player, Internet access, and video camera, but perhaps with a GPS navigation system that they’ll need when they get lost within the 2.2 square mile confines of Falls Church.

Students these days are doing the same thing they did 10 years ago when they secretly tried to play with their Tamagachis underneath their desks. This time around, however, they are attempting to text message their friends, who they’ll see in an hour during lunch anyway, while trying to elude their teachers. There’s nothing wrong with talking to your friends of course, and a little teacher disobedience isn’t so horrible either, but it seems that many students just do it to look cool. Don’t deny it, all you students who do it. Once in a while when you see someone chatting loudly on a cell phone or clicking their thumbs away on their keypad, you think that they’re a cool person. At least I do at times. And why is this? Perhaps because they look important. And don’t get me started on cell phonies.

The ring tone business is a big one right now, drawing in perhaps millions of dollars from teenagers like you and me, because we always want the latest and greatest and having the hottest new song as our ring tone before anyone else would show that we ourselves are trendy. You’ve seen the commercials trying to sell you the best ring tone plans. They always show some guy dressed in the latest clothes walking down the street, with some hip-hop song reverberating from his pockets. No, they’re not just happy to see you, someone’s just calling them. Then a flock of hot, trendy girls start following him, dancing to the rhythm of 50 Cent, to the party that’s literally in his pants. These commercials show us that we will be cool if we get the latest ring tones, just like Joe Shmoe in their advertisement. Unfortunately, thousands of teenagers believe in this shameless advertising and proceed to waste their money on purchasing the latest ring tones. Just like when they were children.

I’m not one of those crazy hippies who think cell phones are evil. In fact, I think cell phones are very useful and perhaps are important to have in today’s world. On the other hand, I also think it is amusing when I see my fellow classmates say that they couldn’t live without their cell phones. I just have to laugh when I think about what they’re going to do with themselves if their parents take away their precious cell phones. The world will end apparently.

In case you’re wondering, I do have a cell phone. It’s wrapped up in the box it came in with a family of spiders nesting in it, buried under a pile of clothes in my closet. In contrast to my fellow teenagers, I don’t believe that I’m some kind of loser if I don’t use my cell phone. To my amusement, many students have voiced this exact opinion to me when they find out that I don’t use a cell phone. "Ohmygod, how do you talk to your friends!?!" they ask. I say to them, how did you talk to your friends before you had a cell phone? There are other modes of communication out there besides cell phones, such as a real telephone, e-mail, and I know this is hard to believe, but postal mail as well. Yes, cell phones are useful, but it’s not necessary for teenagers to depend on them and wrack up hundreds of dollars in bills, as if you’ll be shunned as a hermit without it.

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