It’s 6:45 a.m., and Nate Seidle is 15 minutes late for the bus to the game. The volleyball team needs to leave for an away match in New York, but there are no signs of Seidle, the middle hitter, and worse yet, he does not own a cell phone.
It seems almost unthinkable for most people in America to go one day without a cell phone. Yet as it turns out, there exists a small group of young people who believe their lives are better without mobile phones.
When asked about the advantages of being cell-free, Seidle said, “There are so many. To start, you can pay attention to the people around you and your mom can’t call you every day.” Seidle also added that he is saving $30 to $100 a month without having to pay for a phone plan with minutes, text, and internet – something your common cellphone user see as a necessary piece of their budget.
Joel Stein, writer for Bloomsburg BusinessWeek, called the cell-free group “America’s Most Exclusive Group.”  He said, “Not having a cell phone is a way of getting the world to run on your time. A lot of powerful people are already on to this. Warren Buffett doesn’t use one, nor does Mikhail Prokhorov, the 45-year-old Russian billionaire who owns the New Jersey Nets.”
In the same article, Stein quoted Jonathan Reed, 46, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of La Verne, who explained why he loved traveling without cell phones.
“I’ll talk to strangers. I love going to Italy, where everyone talks to everyone all the time. A cell phone signals that my whole world is me and it excludes everyone else,” Reed said.
Brian “Bex” Huff, a software architect, wrote an article entitled “Nope, I Don’t Own a Cell Phone” on his professional blog. In the post, Huff unashamedly stated, “I can understand why some people find them useful, but for me a cell phone has absolutely no value. Staying connected? Hardly… Email, instant messaging, and the Internet are connected. Cell phones are leashes.”
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 85 percent of adult Americans have cell phones.  However, the same study revealed most of the 15 percent is made up of elderly American’s who do not care to learn how to function the new gizmos.  The numbers back up this assumption as 94 percent young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 own cell phones.
Yet another small percentage of Americans do not have the means to afford a cell phone plan. Therefore with the elderly, the poor, and all other factors considered, Seidle joins an incredibly small percentage (1-3 percent) of young Americans who have the means and wit to own a cell phone, but would rather not.
Why would you not want a cell phone? To answer this question backwards, let’s find out why people DO use cell phones.  In a one-month study, a group of cell phone users reported this activity:
•51% had used their phone at least once to get information they needed right away.
•42% of cell owners used their phone for entertainment when they were bored.
•13% of cell owners pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the people around them.
With these statistics, one might think cell phones are not a necessity after all.  However, there is one question always lingering in the back of our minds:
“What if I find myself in an emergency situation where my only hope is a cell phone?”
In the same one-month study, 40 percent of the cell owners said they found themselves in an emergency situation in which having their phone with them helped. Seidle dismissed the argument as a valid reason to own a phone.
“That depends on what you call an emergency. Missing a hair appointment because you did not have a cell phone to schedule one is not an emergency for me, but it might be for others.”
During the interview with Seidle, another cell-free student – and a friend of Seidle’s – joined in.
“Dean!”  Nate yelled excitedly, “Get over here!”
Dean said that like Seidle, he had never been in an emergency situation where he needed a cell phone.
“We sometimes have trouble getting in touch with each other” Dean said, “we just need to schedule ahead when we want to hang out.”