Are new recruits too addicted to their cell phones? Is this a good thing?

CPT (Join to see), starting in OCT69, I went from BCT to AIT (11C), jump school and then to SFTG at Fort Bragg. Three years later, in 1973, I was commissioned a second lieutenant after completing OCS. We didn't even have cell phones back then, and everyone got along just fine. People don't need cell phones, they just want them. Take them away. SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth

I think it is far more systemic than just recruits. I think it is society as a whole. I went out to eat the other day and saw this young couple that were clearly on a date. Both of them were glued to their phones instead of each other.

The whole world is addicted to them. Everyone walks around staring at their toes.

Purpose of basic training is to tear you apart and rebuild you. Losing your phone is part of the process.

Nothing wrong with being addicted to your mobile after training as long as it doesn't interfere with your duty.

Its not just recruits, its everyone under the age of 25. Cell phones have become an addiction, but like any addiction you can break away from it. I like some of the ideas in other comments. Especially in the military, it's easy to take someone away from their cell phone and have them go cold turkey. Allowing cell phone use only under certain conditions or at certain times makes sense in the military. Unfortunately that isn't as easy to do in the civilian world. Company policy and rules have no effect on limiting an employees cell phone use while working. Add to that the fact that supervisors in the 25 - 35 year old group see no problem using a cell phone to text instructions to their subordinates, so you can't even tell employees to lock their cell phones away while they are working. Guess it is just a sad fact of todays connected lifestyle that people become addicted to a cell phone.

It's purely millennial culture and the culture of modern society. We used pay phones to call home, the trainees get 15 minutes on their cell phones. Take them away and hand them out during those liberties and make sure to get them all back when over. Not a big deal.

That's actually a quite interesting question...I'd say yeah, I know obv I'll be disagreed with, of course...prob it's a dinosaur perspective, I know, lol...the whole good/bad thing, I know I'd really be taken to task by many on here if said bad...I've got my own thoughts, of course...I just think it detracts from the mind, though the social good they do, in terms of being able to get help, ocsnly, as I'd read of on occasion, for troops in the field, I'd read stories of such things, I suppose more than !makes up for any potential societal ramifications, I guess, hope that was of interest. And, of course, those are just my own thoughts, obv...I know others on here will still likely want to take me to task for such thoughts, of course, I was just being honest...I'd just read of instances where, apart from uses for emergencies, there'd been instances where troops actually had used them in the field, which of course I'd always found interesting...there was, if I recall, a scene in Amer Sniper where he'd apparently been depicted making such a call, at one point, to his wife. If remember the film correctly...I could be wrong, perhaps, I just seem to remember that, I'd also read of other similar instances, where troops found having them handy for similar emergencies, of course, apart from genl populace finding them of use, certainly, in such instances...just some reflections, honest, thought provoking question, truly, got my mental gears turning somewhat, lol.

Yes, take them away an they're lost.

Humans are too addicted to their cell phones.

The whole country is too addicted to our cell phones.