Wednesday, April 3, 1996
Students increasingly find pagers a necessity to keep
communication lines openBy Karen Duryea
Daily Bruin Staff
It’s been dubbed the "electronic leash," keeping its carrier
linked to the world 24 hours a day. It far surpasses the homely
little answering machine that now spends most of its solitary life
unused.
The use of pagers is widespread on campus  some believe
they are a necessity for college students who lack the time to wait
by the phone.
"I carry it so people can find me, my answering machine eats my
messages," said Tannie Fung, a second-year undeclared student.
Nowadays, some UCLA students believe that an answering machine
just isn’t enough. Pagers are the choice of students who are on the
run, and they keep communication lines open wherever a student may
be.
Raymond Kim, a second-year economics student, carries his pager
daily so that his friends can get a hold of him wherever he is on
campus.
"You’re a student, and you’re always walking around on campus,"
said Kim, who has had his pager for the past two years. "In high
school, you are always with your close friends, (in college) you
have random friends that you don’t see on a daily basis."
But pagers aren’t just for receiving numbers anymore. Lionel
Barton, manager of Affordable Portables in Westwood, said the
latest in pager technology allows customers to avoid using a phone
to respond to pages when they have 2-way paging.
"With two-way paging, customers get a list of responses they can
send back to their caller, including custom responses such as ‘Meet
me at five o’clock," Barton said.
In addition to two-way paging, which can cost as much as $25 to
$30 a month depending on how many calls the customer receives, the
latest pagers have five different musical alerts along with the
standard beep and vibrating modes.
And pagers now come in smaller sizes, such as in the shape of
pens (Motorola Pagers) and wristwatches (Seiko Pagers).
Alpha-numeric pagers allow callers to leave messages with both
letters and numbers.
Barton, whose Westwood store has been in business for 13 years,
said standard numeric pagers are the most popular among students
due to their low cost of $5 to $12 per month. UCLA students make up
to 35 percent of his clientele, Barton said.
Edward Opoke, a second-year biochemistry student, carries a
state-of-the-art pager that gives him news updates twice a day, in
addition to two-way and alpha-numeric paging. He uses his pager to
get in contact with friends, but his pager also serves a purpose
common among students  screening calls.
"I like to give out my pager number instead, so that way I can
choose to call them back," agreed Lorraine Aguilar, a first-year
pre-business economics student.
Jabali Wells, a second-year psycho-biology student, also carries
a technologically advanced pager, but his supply of personal
electronics doesn’t end there. He also carries a cellular phone
.
"Being a student, I am always busy, and a (cellular) phone makes
it more convenient as far as returning calls, as opposed to finding
a pay phone," Wells said.
Some students carry a phone and pager because they leave campus
on the weekends and are unable to check their answering machine for
a few days.
"It’s the fast life, it’s urban communication," said Jihad
Saleh, a third-year political science/sociology student.
Saleh carries what he calls the "necessary trio." First, his
pager lets him see the number of the person calling. He then refers
to his electronic phone book to identify the caller. Finally, he
uses his cellular phone if he thinks the call is important enough
to return immediately. This way, he keeps down excessive charges on
his cellular phone.
"You can’t just be calling every Tom, Dick and Harry," Saleh
said.
But other pager-toting students felt it is unnecessary to carry
both a pager and a cellular phone.
"(Cellular phones) annoy me and they cost too much," Fung said.
"There are pay phones around, so I think it is kind of pointless.
Most of my friends have them, so I borrow their phone if I go on a
long drive."
With so many students bogged down with communication technology,
getting paged during class is a frequent occurrence
Because of the disturbance, some instructors  including
accounting lecturer Julie Ann Gardner  have banned cellular
phones and pagers from their classes.
"Usually there’s at least one going off during class, almost
everyone has one," Aguilar agreed. She leaves her pager on
vibration mode so as not to interrupt the class. When she gets
enough money, Aguilar said she hopes to purchase a cellular
phone.
Many UCLA teachers said they aren’t particularly bothered by
pager interruptions  in fact, some professors even carry
their own.
Psychology Professor Hector Myers, who is currently a clinical
supervisor for graduate students, says his pager has gone off
several times and interrupted his teaching. He has never had to
reprimand a student for letting their pager go off in class.
"I would probably encourage students that in the future, to put
the pager on vibration mode if possible," Myers said.
Photos by Patrick Lam