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LIFE LINE from page 29

that was 20 years ago. It is so different
today. Maybe it is because the media
reports things more, but it seems like a
scarier world for kids," Haller said.
"Parents still want to give their chil-
dren freedom but they want them to
stay in touch."
Ann Rosenberg's two oldest sons,
Barry and Steven, both had car
phones in their first cars and she
plans to do the same with her third
son, Kevin, who has neither a car nor
a phone considering he just turned
16.
This West Bloomfield mother uses
the phones mainly as a convenience
to keep track of her changes in her
children's busy schedules, to coordi-
nate car pools but also to make sure
all are safe.
consider my use of it something
of a business nature," she said. "I can
be taking care of my home and family
business without being at home."
"With teenagers, plans change easi-
ly and you have to be available to be
there for them," she said.
And the communication devices
can be relatively inexpensive. Many
stores offer packages with easy to
manage monthly limited use con-
tracts, charging a set fee for a certain
number of minutes. Relatively new
pre-paid phone cards in various
denominations can be used without
monthly contracts and further curb
use by limiting the user to the
amount of minutes specified. Some
stores, like the AirTouch Cellular
locations, offer packages of both a
cellular phone and a pre-paid phone
card for $99 or more.
Costs for operation have lowered,
while the number of users has risen
from just over 200,000 in June 1985
to over 63 million currently.
According to Cellular Telecomm-
unications Industry Association, the
average monthly bill for users is now
$39.88 as compared with $95 in
1988. "It is a worthwhile expense,"
Rosenberg said.
But not everyone is thrilled by the
proliferation of cell phone use among
the teenage set. School systems, by
and large, have done their best to
squash such usage within the schools
themselves, saying they can be seen as
status symbols and cause fights or
worse. Also, the noise alone would

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disrupt regular classroom activity.
"Are you kidding?" asked one Troy
High School worker who asked not
to be named. "With teenagers? Those
things would be ringing all of the
time."
Because of this, most area school
systems have adopted written poli-
cies banning the use of wireless
communication systems such as
phones and pagers, setting punish-
ment for breaking the rule as high
as suspension.
Parents interviewed for this story
couldn't agree with the educators
more, saying they intended the
phones to be used just in case their
child's car breaks down or their
plans change, not to exchange the
latest gossip with their friends. But
that at times is a hard lesson to
teach.
Ask Stephanie Burstein. The 23-
year-old University of Detroit grad-
uate student in clinical psychology
first received a car phone around
the time she got her license to drive
seven years ago.
"My parents wanted to make sure
that if I needed to call them for any-
thing,
b, it would be there," she said.
Because the phone was anchored
in her car and because she did not
spend all that much time in her car,
she didn't use it that much at first.
But she admits that she strayed from
her parents advisement to use it only
in emergencies or to call them, dial-
ing up her then teenage girl friends to
chat about less trivial matters.
"My parents would get the bill
and remind me that that was not
the purpose of having the phone,'
she said.
Since then, she has become more
liberal in her use of her now portable
cell phone, at times even calling her
out of state boyfriend to excitedly tell
him her test scores immediately after
class. Although her parents again have
warned her that that is not the reason
for the phone, she admits it is a hard
habit to stop.
"It is very addictive and because
of that, it is not the greatest thing
in the world. It is nice when you
think of calling someone to pick up
the phone and call right away," she
said. "I don't want to imagine living
without it."

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Detroit Jewish News

11/20
1998

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