The Lost Cell Phone

                                               Picture courtesy of Google Images

It was a typical day of May in New York City; Ivanna woke up to a digital alarm clock (The Saylor Foundation, 2009).  Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she pushes back her covers to reach for her cell phone.  Ivanna checks her cell phone for the for today’s weather updates.  She then goes into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and breakfast Danish and as she sips her coffee she opens her laptop and begins checking emails, Facebook and Twitter accounts for the latest news.  Ivanna turns to her iPod for some disco pick up music to help get her to the shower.  On her phone, she orders a taxi to take her to work, not knowing that this would be the last time that she used her phone.  Ivanna leaves her phone inside the taxi cab. 

Sasha Gomez, 16, of Queens is the next passenger who luckily finds the expensive T-Mobile Sidekick that sold for $350 (Confessore, 2006).  Sasha began using the phone as soon as she found it.  Sasha sent instant messages and photographs to friends and family.  These seemingly harmless communications helped Ivanna and her media-savvy friend Evan Guttman to log into her account and track down Sasha with her phone (Confessore, 2006).  Evan contacts Sasha and asks her to give the phone back.  Sasha told him to take a hike.  Evan sent out communications to the New York Times and Sasha’s friends on MySpace.  Evan created a website that had two blogs dedicated to stolen phone.   Soon emails from around the country and even as far as Africa and Asia began coming in sympathy for his friend’s phone. 

Outraged citizens formed an online community that began investigating the story and sent Evan information through thousands of emails concerning Sasha’s family.  Police officers and lawyers began sending Evan legal advice by email.  Sasha still refused to give up the phone.  Sasha’s brother was military policeman that reached out to Evan to threaten him to back off.  He posted the brother’s comments online and public outrage was so great, word of the situation reached military authorities and results in the brother being told by his superiors that he was in violation of military policy.  Stubbornly, even with thousands of disgruntled emails and now the real threat that in frustration Evan would go directly to the police, Sasha still refused to give up the phone. 

The police arrested Sasha and charged her with possession of stolen property.  The story was in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and broadcast on MSNBC.  Sasha and her family experience public shaming and ridicule that would only be possible in today’s media culture.  On the hand, Evan became a cultural icon showing how society’s expectations of technology and media’s impact a culture that has to understand in order to maintain sense of society, digital freedom must come with responsibility.  In a 2011, NPR’s Clay Shirley podcast "Here Comes Everybody':  What's Next on the Web" made some bold predictions concerning the Web 3.0 and society’s expectations.  Today’s digital technology incorporates all of everyday life. Evan and many other citizens are able to use technology with media to create an ethical stance that the entire world could hear.

Reference

Confessore, N. (2006, June 21). Tale of a lost cellphone an untold static. Retrieved from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/nyregion/21sidekick.html?_r=0

The Saylor Foundation, (2009). Understanding media and culture: An introduction to communications. Retrieved from Saylor.org: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CD8QFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.saylor.org%2Fsite%2Ftextb