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My name is Susie and I’m an addict.

A communications addict, that is. Facing up to it is at least a step in the right direction but doing something about it is a whole other ball of wax. When a friend announced she was taking the plunge give up her mobile phone, it sent shockwaves through the group. I think we were all a little incredulous, perhaps we secretly thought she wouldn’t really go through with it. How could she? She’d be virtually unreachable. We might even have to leave a message on her home phone and wait for a call back. In preparation for this life-altering move, she explained she would first need to go out and purchase a home answer machine. It seems the cell phone habit had been so efficient at ensuring constant global access it virtually eliminated any need to give out her home phone number. This decision to buck-the-trend prompted us to recall the pre-answer machine days of our youth when calling often meant leaving the phone to ring and ring in the desperate hope they might eventually pick up. And when they didn’t, you were simply out of luck.

Six years ago, our move to the countryside presented its own set of communication issues. We soon discovered the patchy cell phone coverage. Driving five minutes in any direction – or just walking between rooms in our house – meant we’d repeatedly drop calls, neither a helpful habit when convincing an employer you are every bit as productive and accessible in a telecommuting role, nor when setting up a home business. We embarked on an unholy battle royale over cell phone coverage, first lambasting our existing provider (Sprint), then biting the bullet, breaking our contract (at great and immoral expense) to switch camps. Lured by Catherine Zeta Jones’ husky voice, hot pink advertising accents and the mall salesmen’s assurances of “excellent coverage in the Chatham area”, we became T-Mobile customers for exactly one week. During this time we repeatedly complained until they acknowledged there wasn’t any coverage and released us – and our three lines – from the contract. (That’s not to say they didn’t continue to bill us for the next four months, but that’s another story.) After fighting the good fight, AT&T was there to dry our eyes and pick up the pieces but it all seems a long time ago in an era before Facebook, Twitter and iPhones ruled our world.

In just one short year, life has been irrevocably changed by this ability to constantly access and broadcast random information. Facebook has proven rather democratic. Where online games and the degree of cell phone use always seemed to emphasize generational differences, Facebook has managed to unite tweens and grandparents, although there’s always going to be something unnerving about your mum’s “friend request”. Blogs set the ball in motion enabling us to publicly share thoughts and musings and MySpace provided a private social platform that attracted teens like honey and struck fear in the hearts of their parents – a prerequisite for any successful generation-alienating trend. But Facebook has rather deftly sidestepped the accusations of fear and fad, making itself so uniformly useful that even banks and businesses are in on the action.

I didn’t particularly want an iPhone but having one has only fed into my need to know. I rarely have time for television and routinely miss the news programs, but with downloadable Apps for my favourite world newspapers I can check the global perspective with (literally) up to the minute news. Meanwhile, just three years ago I was devouring novels during midnight baby feeds. Now, with baby number two, I’m nursing at 2am and trawling Facebook profiles, exchanging comments with friends in different time zones. Hilary Clinton need not have worried about who’d be up to take the 3am crisis call. We’re all pretty much available 24 hours now. Just check Twitter to see who’s around.

Twitter takes a little more to love. Literally the tool to document and gratify your every thought and action, friends let you know what they’ve just seen, celebrities let you know where they’re eating, and businesses keep you posted with news and offers. For a second you might feel special when your inbox is suddenly jam packed with followers waiting for your every tweet until you realize that half of them are fem-bots, an alarming form of glamour spam. I was amused when my husband caved and added a Twitter account “for professional purposes”, whatever that may mean. I also scanned an article that claimed to pinpoint ten ways to tell if you’re too old for Facebook and another ten to tell if your status updates are annoying. Like my friends and colleagues, I view most of the viral youtube videos so we have all the common denominators in places when we meet up in person. Which brings me back to my newly cellphone-free friend. I think she may be ahead of the curve. If the expanding laws governing cell phone use and the video clip of a circle of mobile phones popping popcorn don’t do the trick, there’s always room for a communication backlash. Just as we’re going back to basics with local and organic with food, perhaps we’ll look with fondness on a time when freedom from constant accessibility reigned. So at the weekend I spent one full day without my cell phone. I felt free. Guilty and uninformed, but free. Until I made up for it with the 2am feed.

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Susie Davidson Powell is a consultant, freelance writer, and avid traveler. Succumbing to wanderlust, Susie left her UK home following an esoteric career path from Warsaw to the Greek isle of Nissyros and on to New York City. Home is now far from the madding crowd in New York’s picturesque Columbia County. Country life comes complete with a nineteenth century farmhouse, two excitable boxers, two excessively large cats, one husband, one toddler and a new baby.

originally published as ‘Incommunicado’ in the Chatham Courier
part of the Johnson Newspaper Corp

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