THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 5, 1994 TAG: 9408050084
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON HIGH SCHOOL, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
DEENA DIALED her friend's number at about 8 p.m.
Then she brushed her teeth.
Then she changed into her pajamas.
Then she cleaned her room, read a magazine and did her homework.
Then she got in bed and slept from 3 to 6 a.m, still maintaining the connection.
Then she woke up and talked on the phone some more.
She took a shower at 7 a.m.
Then she hung up at 8 a.m.
For 12 hours, she was on the phone. She never broke the connection.
For some people, marathon phone calls are as much a part of their day as eating. Battling such foes as ear fatigue, siblings, parents and sleepiness, these teens have found the strength of will to stay on the phone for amazing stretches - up to 12 hours.
A waste of time?
For Deena, time on the phone is not idle time. ``I've been on the phone in the shower, outside my car, in the pool,'' she said. ``I'm in the bathroom all the time. I brush my teeth on the phone.''
When having a marathon phone conversation, local teens say the conversations can get very personal. Because this type of phone call usually happens late at night, the sleep-deprived minds of the callers also frequently come up with other interesting topics - tales of childhood injuries, debates about the merits of string cheese and in-depth examinations of odd song lyrics.
Deena said she and her friends discuss subjects including capital punishment and date rape. They talk about weekend plans and school.
Time flies, Deena said. She would know. Deena's longest phone call was a 12-hour conversation with her ex-boyfriend that lasted from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. Deena's parents thought she was sleeping.
Deena also has another advantage - her brothers no longer live at home, so they don't care how long she stays on the phone. In some families, telephones cause sibling rivalry.
Richard Lewis, 16, a rising junior at Norfolk Academy who spends two to three hours on the phone nightly, says his parents don't mind his talking on the phone so much. ``What they really care about is when me and my sister fight over the phone,'' he said.
Telephones can also cause financial troubles, said Chanda Farrow, 16, a rising senior at Maury High. She has run up phone bills of $300, making calls to her pen pal in Florida. Her mother ``flipped out'' when she got the bill, Chanda said. ``She made me pay for it.''
To Chanda's mother, Mona Farrow, these calls came as a complete surprise. She found out about them last November, ``and I'm still getting bills,'' she says. Mona Farrow said now she won't leave Chanda alone with the phone.
``It's like an addiction to her,'' Mona Farrow said. She is even thinking about having her phone number changed and not telling her daughter or putting a block on the phone so only certain people can use it.
Some teens have found ways to avoid such parental restrictions. Deena tries to limit her long distance calls to under an hour. If she does, her parents take care of the bill.
Julia Nee, 16, a rising junior at Norfolk Academy, has her own technique - she calls her friends in Taiwan collect. When she does call on her family's bill, she says her parents often can't tell because they call there so often for business.
On the other end of the spectrum are the short calls. Some people have too much time on their hands, so they pick up the phone. Hence, the infamous prank call. Richard put it this way: ``Well, occasionally some weird friends of mine call up and say `Sploobie, sploobie, sploobie' and then hang up. Either that or they ask for Tyrone.''
Another way to use the phone for amusement purposes is conference calling. One person with conference calling will call another and then another. If either of the people has conference calling, he or she can call other people and so on.
Chanda and Deena recommend this format for serious gossip-fests. MEMO: Elizabeth Williamson is a rising junior at Norfolk Academy. She wrote
this story as part of the newspapers' 8th Annual Minority Journalism
Workshop.
ILLUSTRATION: Drawing
JANET SHAUGHNESSY/Staff
by CNB