Disconnected

WATERTOWN -- As Room 250 at Watertown High School fills with students before the senior elective Issues in American Government begins, the question that teacher John Rimas fields is not about the topic of the day, the assassination of President Kennedy, or any current issue in American government -- the move to block filibusters of judicial nominations, for instance. No, it's about lunch. ''Are we ordering food?" Mr. Rimas's answer? ''Ask Stephanie."

In walks Stephanie Pallone to more inquiries about lunch. ''I can't," she says. ''I don't have my cellphone."

Pallone and two friends, Grace Cameron and Caroline Leary, are giving up their cellphones and computers for a week, at the Globe's request, and also keeping a log of their experiences. Their journey to the not-so-distant past is an experiment of sorts, designed to illustrate the impact of the latest communication technology on teenage life. That means no mobile calls, no text messaging, no instant messaging, no e-mail, no blogging, and no web-surfing for seven days. That means Pallone cannot assume her usual post, ordering subs and fries, the day lunch bisects this class and Mr. Rimas lets students eat in the classroom.

It's a small inconvenience, overcome by having another student call the sandwich shop. By week's end, however, the three friends are complaining less about inconvenience than about feeling disconnected from friends and family in a youth culture that revolves around instant -- or the idea of instant -- communication. They watch TV more and sleep more. Cameron, who is 18 and an avid instant messenger, finds herself home less than usual, in part to avoid the temptation of the computer in her living room. Pallone, also 18, finds herself home more than usual because she's lost her floating link to what's happening where.

''It was weird not being in contact with people," Leary, who is 19, says after the week ends.

''Not having a cellphone negatively affected my social life," says Pallone. ''I felt shut in."

''The technology we have today really enhances relationships," says Cameron, who in one 40-minute stretch the previous week logged four e-mails, instant message exchanges with six people, one text message, and one phone call. ''You can talk to people when you're home and not home. You can talk to multiple people at the same time. If a cellphone and the Internet can make that available, it's a good thing."

Driving the connected generation is a surge in teen usage of cellphones and computers in recent years, propelled, in the case of cellphones, by relatively low-cost family plans. In 2000, only 20 percent of teens owned cellphones. Today, 54 percent do. Eighty percent of teens go online in a given week, up from 30 percent in 1997. Three-fifths use instant messaging, up from half five years ago.

''Teens have always been big into communication," says Rob Callender, trends director for Teenage Research Unlimited, the Illinois-based consulting firm that compiled those numbers. ''The level of freedom they get is endlessly expanding. Previous generations may have had cars. They didn't have a convenient way to shift plans on the go. Teenagers today are very now-oriented. They don't have a lot of patience to wait around. Waiting may very well be a lost art."

Feeling out of touch
Pallone is in her first day of tech-free living the Monday she throws the javelin 80 feet at a track competition in Reading. Waiting for the meet to end, she's impatient. ''WICKED BORED," she writes in her log. ''Would love to call someone right now!!" She pays her own cellphone bill, which runs $70 a month, financed via two weekend jobs.

At least Pallone doesn't have to wean herself from instant messaging. Her computer, to her initial dismay, broke months ago, leaving her access only to e-mail on her mother's laptop. ''In retrospect, I used to waste so much time sitting in front of the computer," she says. ''Not even just talking. Looking at people's profiles and surfing the Internet. I'm not even sad it's gone."

The cellphone is another matter. Sometimes when she's upset during school, Leary takes a bathroom pass so she can call Pallone. When Pallone witnessed a traffic accident, after she called the police, she called her mother. During the low-tech week, on her way to Framingham to buy shoes for the senior prom, Pallone misses her turnpike exit when she's sandwiched between two trucks.

''I was completely discombobulated," Pallone recalls. ''I wanted to call my brother for directions. I wanted to call my mother because I always call my mother when I'm in distress. She calms me down."

The three have classmates who say they couldn't give up modern communication. ''Like, I'm always on the go," says Danielle Randolph. ''I work a lot, and I'm always late for work. I always have to call and say I'm on my way."

These three use their cellphones mainly as quick catch-up and tracking devices. Ditto for instant messaging, though Cameron has a few friends with whom she has extended conversations via IM. ''I don't know where everyone is all the time," says Leary. ''It's just knowing how easy it is to get in contact with everyone."

E-mail, Leary adds, is for correspondence with adults -- coaches, teachers, parents -- and not for socializing. Indeed, Teenage Research Unlimited reports, the two-thirds of teens using e-mail in a given week is down from almost three-quarters in 2000.

Teens, on average, spend almost 7 hours a week online, TRU finds, up from 5 hours and 20 minutes in 2000 and less than 2 hours in 1997. They watch TV almost 10 hours a week, down from 11 hours in 2000. They use cellphones roughly four hours a week.

Surviving the weekend
The Friday evening before they ditch their cells and computers begins with Cameron curled up in front of the computer, one or more IM screens open at once, the cellphone beside her ringing now and then, the Internet a click away. Checking friends' ''away" messages on IM -- another way to stay perpetually connected -- Cameron learns that one classmate is taking a shower and that Leary, who's been sick all week, is in the hospital (for dehydration). For her own away messages, Cameron favors quotes from the likes of Pink Floyd and Jack Kerouac. ''I feel uncomfortable," she says, ''when people know exactly what I'm doing."

So starts the weekend, which the three predict will be the hardest time during the low-tech week that commences the following Monday. ''What are you doing tonight?" Cameron IMs her friend Donald early in their 90-minute, on-and-off exchange. ''Nothing," he replies. Cameron accepts Donald's invitation to go to Newbury Comics, but, in a generation whose plans are made perpetually malleable by mobile technology, he's unsure whether her ''yes" is a possibility or a promise. ''You can and you will? Haha, lots of times people say I'd love to but,. . ." he types. Cameron, in turn, includes Pallone (who's told other friends she might meet them at a park earlier) and thinks she'll also get together with a friend named Matt who's called her, too. By night's end, Pallone will skip the park, Cameron and Pallone will go to Newbury Comics, Pallone will call -- and meet -- still other friends, and Cameron won't see Matt.

''You don't have to make a commitment at all," says Pallone. ''Let's say we're hanging out. There's nothing going on. We whip out our cellphones and find out what else is going on. If we didn't have cellphones, we'd have to be content with where we are."

''It can be frustrating," says Cameron. ''You want to do something with someone, but your plans weren't firm. If they say, 'I'll call you,' they may or may not."

During low-tech week, Pallone uses her home phone and pay phones and complains she has to call everyone because ''nobody knows my house number." Leary rarely uses her landline because ''I'm not used to it, and it's downstairs." Cameron, in an emergency, uses her cell to tell her uncle her grandmother is hospitalized.

Gone is the daily IM contact between Cameron and Leary, who rarely see each other in school. ''I didn't talk to Gracie for two days," says Leary. ''It was so weird." At least Cameron, out for the season recovering from foot surgery, shows up at Leary's tennis match on Tuesday and again Thursday during practice.

Come Friday night and no possibility of reaching for her cell after a friend's band wins the school's Battle of the Bands, Pallone heads home to call Leary, who's not back from celebrating her sister's birthday. She calls a second friend, and finally a third, who comes over with two other guys, and later Leary joins them. Saturday night feels slow, out of the loop, with only Pallone and Leary and, later, another friend hanging out at Pallone's house the whole night except for a brief stop to see another friend. ''We pretty much just sat around," says Leary.

The week over at last, Leary puts an ''away" message on her computer, Pallone calls her mother at work, and Cameron finds 52 e-mail messages, 25 of them junk.

''At the beginning it was really hard for me not to use the computer," says Cameron. ''Later it was hard not to use the cellphone. I realized I really needed the cellphone. The computer was an inconvenience. The cellphone was a necessity."

Leary and Cameron each have 23-year-old sisters who went through high school without cellphones.

''My sister would always be sitting in the house until 10 o'clock trying to make plans," says Leary. ''Her and a couple of her girl-friends would hang out, trying to make phone calls."

Says Cameron: ''I don't know how my sister did it."