I have trouble remembering the last time I went somewhere without my cell phone. Everywhere I go it sits in my pocket ready to make sure I can be reached any time of the day. When I go to sleep at night, it sits charging on the bedside table and in the morning when I wake up it immediately tells me everything I missed through the night.

I remember a time when most people didn’t have these handy little gadgets. I remember going on vacation with my parents and being almost completely unreachable. I remember pay phones and important people holding car phones that could easily cause a repetitive stress shoulder injury if you used one as much as I use my Blackberry.

I cannot say I was surprised to find out that my cell phone is unwelcome in some of my classes. Although mine stays in my pocket, silenced or on vibrate most of the time, I realize that there is the potential for distraction and interruption during class. What amazed me most was how put out most of my fellow students seemed about this bit of information.

I would like to propose a mass experiment for us all. I would like us to pick a day sometime in the near future and decide to leave our cell phones off for a full 24 hours. It won’t be easy. We may have to use laptops to keep up on our e-mails and check Facebook for that day. There may not be texts flowing in with a roaring river of information about all the minutia of everyone’s everyday. Sadly, it would also be the day without drunk dialing.

I don’t mean to propose anything drastic. I know how important cell phones are to all of us. I am not removed from this behavior; I just sometimes wish to be. We are not all doctors who need to be reachable any time, day or night. I also realize that this is something we are all in control of already. It is easy to hold down the red button and watch the phone power off.

More to the point is that I cannot believe we’ve reached a point where professors have to make a point of removing the cell phone from the classroom. That means there were enough people on their phone during class that it had to be addressed. I get upset when I cannot hear the movie because someone is on their cell phone in the theater. The incredible $14 I spent on that is dwarfed by the massive amount of money we are all paying to go to class.

So, I have a suggestion for the people who were upset about cell phones being forbidden during class: Take out your cell phone, call a cab and go home.