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5[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/{{xkcd}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2021_01_30_185451.png]]]]
6[[caption-width-right:350:"When Wikipedia has a server outage, my apparent IQ drops by about 30 points."]]
7
8->'''Steven:''' You don't know about rain?\
9'''Peridot:''' I don't know anything without my screens.
10-->-- ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', "[[Recap/StevenUniverseS2E22WhenItRains When It Rains]]"
11
12While [[CellPhonesAreUseless cell phones can be useless]], at times they can be more handy than we are. Because of them, we have access to every word in the dictionary, can communicate while not being in the same area as your friends, can find out about local and long-distance news as soon as it happens, watch porn in a public area, can shoot lasers out of satellites from space... and also watch every cat video available on [=YouTube=].
13
14Because of this, sometimes the cell phones are more useful than ''us'', almost to the point of [[RobotWar not even needing us to function]]. In that case, some would be completely helpless without our cell-phones or our tablets or our fancy-pants [=PCs=] and Macintoshes. They can't spell correctly, they can't adapt to their surrounding environment, [[TooDumbToLive they can't eat anything without submitting pictures of their food onto Twitter and Facebook]]. They probably wouldn't even know how to turn a page after using Kindle for so long. There is a reason why "Nomophobia" (fear of being without a mobile phone) is considered an official term in the psychological community these days. Safe to say, modern conveniences can be considered a necessity for most these days.
15
16A staple of every PhoneaholicTeenager.
17----
18!!Examples:
19
20[[foldercontrol]]
21
22[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
23* Otonashi Meru from ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei''. When deprived of her ability to flame people via email, she breaks down and starts babbling in BlackSpeech. She carries backup cellphones [[CrazyPrepared to avoid this]].
24[[/folder]]
25
26[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
27* In ''WesternAnimation/TheMitchellsVsTheMachines'', Pal makes her point that humanity needs her more than she needs them when she shuts down the global [=WiFi=]. What follows is a serious of jump cuts showing that humanity devolves into anarchy over the lack of service, either treating [=WiFi=] as a god that needs sacrifices or stepping over each other to let the robots capture them for the promise of it.
28[[/folder]]
29
30[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
31* ''Franchise/CSIVerse'': Common with the younger crowd.
32** ''Series/{{CSI}}'': When a group of teenagers have their phones confiscated but are promised they'll get them back in a few hours, one of the girls asks, "What am I supposed to do without my phone?!"
33** ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': When a high-school girl is asked to turn in her phone as evidence, she's not worried because...
34--->'''Girl''': Here, take it. I have another one at home.\
35'''Stella''': Of course you do.
36* Tom Haverford from ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'' would rather go to jail than spend a week without his cell phone or other electronics. When a judge doles out exactly that punishment to him after live-tweeting while driving, he resorts to improvising the online experience, including making a simulation of Pinterest with a bulletin board… and "clicking" the pictures on it.
37* The ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' episode "Power Down" takes place during a BigBlackout that renders almost all the team's fancy gadgets useless. Gibbs (the least tech-savvy person at NCIS) is the only agent who has little problem carrying out the ep's murder investigation with low-tech tools.
38[[/folder]]
39
40[[folder:Music]]
41* Music/MitchBenn:
42** "Baby I Love You (But Not Like I Love My Phone)":
43--->And though I spend every day thinking about you,\
44I'm reasonably sure I could get by without you,\
45'Cos, baby, I love you, but not like I love my phone.
46** "The South Downs Cowboy", which is basically a ListSong of places in the South Downs, concludes:
47---> And somewhere there's a songwriter, sitting all alone,\
48And he's glad he's got the internet on his mobile phone,\
49And he's grateful he has access to information, 'cos,\
50This morning he wasn't sure where the South Downs even was.
51[[/folder]]
52
53[[folder:Video Games]]
54* When a literal bug knocks-out the Wi-Fi in [[{{Hell}} Sin Inc's]] I.T. Department in ''VideoGame/HellPie'', it doesn't take long for it to devolve into anarchy. Employees start turning on one another, the halls are full of booby-traps [[MacGyvering MacGyvered]] out of office supplies and one section even turns into a "[[RealityIsOutToLunch real life creepy pasta]]."
55[[/folder]]
56
57[[folder:Webcomics]]
58* ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'': One comic features a woman destroying a man's phone and predicting he'll never be able to catch her because, without the phone, he doesn't know anything, even where he is. The [[https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/ants comic]] ends with him screaming that he's pretty sure he's in Canada at the moment.
59* ''Webcomic/{{XKCD}}'': [[https://www.xkcd.com/903/ Extended Mind]]: "When Website/{{Wikipedia}} has a server outage, my apparent IQ drops by about 30 points."
60[[/folder]]
61
62[[folder:Web Original]]
63* In the ''WebVideo/{{Smosh}}'' video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mA5fCFqqz0 "OUR GENERATION IS F*CKED: The Movie,"]] Anthony is [[spoiler:used as a test subject to see if today's generation could get by in a world without cell-phones and internet]] where he quickly breaks down, slowly going crazy without modern conveniences. Safe to say, our generation is f*cked.
64* In the 28th episode of the [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0vRcJh1-GQL_V4qm5F6xFw All Def Digital]] Website/YouTube series ''Dr. Reasons'', the Dr. is treating a couple where the man literally does everything with texting. He never talks like a normal person, only sending texts (how he knows other people's numbers is never shown), and when Dr. Reasons solves the issue by destroying his cell phone, he throws a fit and frightens them away [[spoiler:only to pull another cell phone out of his pocket]].
65* In the WebVideo/{{Twelthofadime}} video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u035J55bdY "Lord of the Facebooks,"]] Kyle, Ben, Baxter and Charlie end up stranded on a deserted island [[spoiler:which they later find out is not deserted]]. Baxter brings up that they would not be able to go on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter in their situation. [[OnlySaneMan Ben]] points out that food and shelter take higher priority, but because he is the ButtMonkey, they all just tell him to shut up. While Kyle tries and fails to hunt, Baxter and Charlie instead try to replicate the experience of Facebook, Twitter and television.
66[[/folder]]
67
68[[folder:Western Animation]]
69* [[TheComicallySerious Peridot]] from ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' is a {{Justified|Trope}} example: she is from another planet and really ''doesn't'' know much about the Earth, save for the information that her now-destroyed tech could provide.
70[[/folder]]

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