Information Anxiety

If you're anything like me, your cellphone is like a part of your body. I can't go anywere without it, and I hate to admit that I am actually afraid to turn it off at night. Should I acidentally leave it at home one day, I spend the whole day in a desperate panic that someone important is trying to call, or that I'm going to miss out on some crucial infomation, gossip or invite from a friend. By leaving it on and always having it with me, I am reachable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I hate to be unreachable. We have a bach in the coromandel that for a long time didn't get reception, so everyday when we drove to a local town with reception I would eagerly await that familiar beep. But now that we've got reception there I no longer have to wait in frustration, I never have to worry of being unreachable.

So my obsession with always being reachable obviously entails that I check my phone constantly just in case I may have not heard it beep. Or ring. In fact, I am begginning to wonder how I ever survived without it before.

When I was 15, which by today's standards is really old, I got a cellphone 'just in case' of emergencies. Of course texting didn't exist at the time, but having the phone was a kind of priviledge, and hardly an extension of my body. I honestly can't remember how or when it went from a just-in-case-of-emergencies priviledge to a device that I feel I just can't live without.

But what I don't understand is that I know, rationally, I don't really need the phone. I actually could live without it. If I need to contact someone there are payphones, and there usually isn't something so important that I can't wait to get home to find it out. But the thought of having to wait a few hours to find out information is somewhat scary. If something happens, or someone is nearby or wants to do something, I want to know NOW. I don't want to find out after everyone else, I don't want to have to make plans in advance and then have to stick to them exactly, I want the flexibility of having a cellphone. And I want to be reachable, just in case. I've got 'information anxiety' - I can't stand to be unreachable, unavailable or unable to receive information from people, so my phone is on, 24/7 and I'm always checking it, just in case.