AT&T’s New BBF Phone Plan

 

baby's first phone

baby’s first phone

I just want to start this by saying AT&T is a horrible company and they charged my dad 700$ for four days of using free wi-fi in a hotel in Mexico, but it is this news that brought me to the ad I would like to discuss before you. 

In” It’s Complicated” we read about identity and how adolescence is a period when people want to figure how they fit into a larger context like the world. Technology and social media has given them a playground inside their own homes.

Parents of today tend to find the world more dangerous and so they have moved their children from playing outside until dusk, to leaving them in the structured confines of a mall, to today pretty much micromanaging what their kids do and restricting them from going out when they want to.

At AT&T I saw an ad and I should have taken a picture of it, but I was just starting ch. 3 and it was only when I got home that I was like, “WOAH that ad makes SO MUCH SENSE NOW.” I couldn’t find a picture on the Google, so you will have to go on a journey and imagine with me:
you see two very young tween-type looking girls, one sitting on a couch and another on the floor both gazing into the first phones. The text said, A plan for your       BFF      . I personally felt like the kids were too young to have phones but these days it’s quite normal for kids in grade school to have them. The main point is that the selling point is the ability to talk to your friends. The phones offered were not high tech, some were flip phones or slide phones… very old school. The fancy multitasking phones were pitched towards older adults with jobs and such. And so, as Boyd said, for young people it’s not about the equipment it’s about the ability to communicate with peers.

For many young kids phones and computers are the only way to have a little privacy. For some reason reading the addiction chapter led me to looking into instagram since I’ve always wondered how certain people get so many hundreds and even thousands of followers when the content they post is honestly useless. I looked up apps like MagicLiker and a few other apps that promise to get you hundreds of followers. Basically you have to follow 2 people to get one person to follow you back. There are coins and incentives all sorts of other things. Most of the images and people asking for likes were young girls posting low quality selfies. I would later see they had 1.7K followers when they only have about 5 pictures. They pretty much spend hours on end or all their money paying for followers or getting them 2 for 1 fold.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know I stepped into that world and it was weird. A lot of people seem self-obsessed. I did get 100 likes (you get 100 to start) and used it for a picture of me doing a music video and I have to say the number made my picture feel like it was a little cooler than it actually is. But I wouldn’t waste any time on it.

It was interesting though how fake and calculated instagram can be. I always thought it was an honest place but I see how anyone at all can get anyone to follow them if they have the same goals in mind.

One thought on “AT&T’s New BBF Phone Plan

  1. frcarbonellm

    I enjoyed reading your post because it brought up two realities that I saw regularly. In regards to your mention of AT&T and the ad, let me first say that I work for a major tech company and one of my responsibilities is to get our product into peoples hands. On an almost daily basis I am selling phones to children, and by children I literally mean kids younger than 13. I have even sold phones to five year olds, a mind boggling experience really. I always wonder, what do these 5, 7, and 11 year olds need phones for? But the reality is, many of the parents tell me they buy the products to keep their children safe, to know where they are at all times, to track, them, and to always reach them if need be. This I understand as a concerned adult, but I ask myself, do you really need our product, our brand, this luxury item to fulfill those needs? Regardless, it’s my job to get my product into peoples hands and create not only a consumer, but a loyal promoter and follower. I do only sell AT&T phones I work with all of the major phone carriers, whatever it takes to get our product out. Also, to clarify, I am not solely a phone sales person, I don’t work for any of the carriers, but it is still my job to get them new subscribers. Always, going back on track, like you said, it really is all about communication, and how we justify it. Be the justification the need to reach your children at all times, or the desire to communicate on the most in demand product, communication seems to justify just about any use/purchase of technology these days.
    In regards to instagram, I remember just a couple weeks back reading all over the news about the Insta-Purge. The cleansing by instagram corporate to block, erase, and delete the millions of fake/unused profiles. Of course this led to people loosing hundreds if not thousands of followers. What was most comedic was the negative response instagram received all over social media, from people loosing followers and demanding them back. I myself, lost probably less than twenty. What a superficial and entitles act, to demand fake likes and followers back. In the end, it’s just another strive towards a popularity contest. Makes me sad really because I see instagram as a solace where I can be expressive and share my life without the need for words or worry of who follows me.

    Thanks for sharing, really had me thinking!
    – Felipe Carbonell

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