Hi, Mom. Can you hear me now?

In the age of the cell phone, some teens and their parents are in constant touch

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Lee Citron, a 17-year-old Millburn High School student, calls his mother, a Livingston dermatologist, when he’s bored. “I have patients on the exam table, and he calls to say hello,” said Cheryl Citron. “But I’m grateful for the call.”

Lee doesn’t always return the favor. “If she tries to call and I don’t answer, she flips out. You have to be available at all times.” Cheryl laughs as her son describes his mother’s use of the phone as “torture.”

Cell phones are changing the way teens and their parents live and communicate. Before cell phones, a public service announcement could scare parents by asking, “Do you know where your children are?” Today a growing number of parents can answer, “Yes — constantly.”

But despite the not infrequently heard complaint that cell phones are intrusive, it doesn’t stop their popularity. Kids say that in exchange for frequent updates, they get a little more freedom; parents breathe a little easier knowing how to reach their children if they get worried.

Many teens have had cell phones since — well— since they became teens. In fact, according to a recent NOP World Technology mKids Study, 75 percent of young Americans 15 to 17 years old carry cell phones, and 40 percent of 12- to14-year-olds now use cells. For the most part, teens can’t imagine life without them. In fact, asking them about how they use cell phones is a little like asking adults about how they use flush toilets.

“To call people” is often the impatient and perplexed answer. In truth, they use them for all sorts of communication, from text messaging to taking photos, even to passing notes in class.

At midnight on a recent Saturday, students from West Orange High School gathered at their usual hangout, Dunkin’ Donuts on Morris Turnpike in Springfield. While there were neither donuts nor coffee on the table where a group of six 17-year-olds from West Orange High School sat, there were plenty of cell phones to go around.

David Goler, who works at the Kids Club at the Leon & Toby Cooperman JCC, Ross Family Campus, in West Orange, said his mother calls “every five seconds.” Is it intrusive? If it is, he isn’t saying so. “I like being able to talk to her,” he said. “She asks where I’m going.” Like most teens, he told NJ Jewish News, he doesn’t even bother using a land line unless there’s no reception. (For the uninitiated, land lines are those old-fashioned phones requiring a jack.)

And his buddy, 17-year-old Sam Hauser, whose family belongs to Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange, said he uses his to call his parents if he needs a ride or to meet up with friends.

Mike Klein, 18, a senior at Millburn High School, likes to study at Dunkin’ Donuts. “Once I went in the middle of the night. I told [my mother] I’d be there about three hours. So at 3 a.m., she said to call. But at 3 a.m., I wasn’t done. So she had me call her every hour until I was.” Does he ever ignore her when she calls? “No, I don’t do that,” he said.

Some have even found novel uses for their phones. “I use it as an alarm throughout the day to remind me of things I’m supposed to do,” said Mike.

Don’t ask Mike, whose family are members of Congregation B’nai Israel in Millburn, what happens if for some reason he leaves his phone at home. “It’s not good,” is all he would say. “I’m so used to having it in my pocket, it feels weird if it’s not there.” Luckily, he lives near the school, he said, so he can go home to get it.

And if you think all you can do with a phone is talk on it, you’ve got to get out more. Text messaging has replaced passing notes in school, although, technically, neither is permitted. “We’re not supposed to do it, but the teachers don’t seem to mind,” said Sam. The question might be whether or not the teachers even know it’s going on.

If teenagers have little context for life in the era we’ll call “BC,” that is, before cell phones, their parents do. And while they seem to revel in knowing exactly where their children are all the time and how to reach them, some raise concerns about the possible impact on their development.

Avi Hauser, Sam’s father, said, “It’s a good way to know where he is, and it’s a way to be able to get in touch with him on short notice.” But, he added, having the phone “doesn’t screen them from doing the stupid things teenagers do or impact on the choices he makes. It [does] allow help to be only a phone call away.” Nonetheless, he said, he worries that instant availability comes at a cost. “Our parents had to let us be on our own. That may have helped in building our self-esteem and self-confidence, something they may be lacking today.”

Actually, according to Elissa Savrin, a psychologist at Short Hills Associates in Springfield who has worked with adolescents in New Jersey for 23 years, the impact of cell phones depends on what stage of adolescence teens are in. Younger teens actually have more independence, while the oldest group seems to have less. “I’m seeing parents of 11- to 14-year-olds much more willing to let their teens go places. In these early stages, teens have more independence because their parents can always reach them.… Older adolescents — those 16 to 21 — are much less independent than they used to be. They are more likely to make hard decisions by picking up the phone to call their parents.” As for the middle group, those 14 to 16, according to Savrin, “It depends on the maturity of the kids. The kids who don’t want their parents to know what they’re doing can get away with more; the kids who wants to be more attached can do that too.”

The oldest group’s dependence on their parents, she suggested, has less to do with cell phones, however, and more to do with general downward mobility. “Young adults are much less independent than they used to be, emotionally, financially, and vocationally.… It’s hard for these kids to graduate from college and do as well as the way their parents raised them.”

Unlike many other teens, Sam didn’t get a cell phone until earlier this year, and he had to earn it by getting on his school’s honor roll. “He wanted it for the longest time,” said Avi Hauser.

Many parents have rules for kids with cell phones, particularly in high school. “The phone had to be shut off all day long while he was in school,” said Hedy Brownstein, a nurse from Livingston and member of Temple Beth Shalom there whose son is now a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania. She gave him a cell phone when he got his license. “God forbid if he got into an accident, I wanted him to be able to use it,” she said, adding, “He hasn’t gotten off the phone since.”

These days, she said, he doesn’t even have a land line, something many universities are doing away with. When she hears from him, it’s always on his cell phone. “He’s usually walking around the college in between classes” when he calls — except when he’s on spring break. She recently got a call from Acapulco. “He called me because his friend had a rash.” That’s not a call she would have made in college, she acknowledged. “I called once a week on Sunday at a certain hour. Today, they’re much more well-connected.”

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnews.com.