for cellphone use. Right now, just about everyone past the age of reasoning can remember when cell phones weren’t thoroughly poliferated. This universal knowledge of life before cellphones immediately destroys complaints against public venues prohibiting cell usage based on the “what if I need to be contacted in an emergency” appeal that the princesses among us like to toss out. However, one day most adults will have lived their entire lives around cell phones, and the idea of someone being unavailiable for immediate contact at all times will be completely foreign to them, making the “emergency” appeal a valid one, effectively conjuring an unfathomable nightmare situation in their spoiled little heads. So when do you think that time will be. When did cellphones pass from being a fringe product to a mainstream necessity? How long will it take for people born at least ten years before then to reach the age of irrelevance?
I would put it around 1991-2 (not exact as you asked but there isn’t an exact answer to this question). This was when portable handheld cellular phones became more popular as technology reduced the handset size and battery requirements, and callingi plan became more affordable. Before that, cellular phones were either car-installed, or The Brick, and service was so expensive only the well-to-do could afford them.
It wasn’t until service became common enough that the average person could have one that it made sense to proffer the emergency argument. Before that the reply to such as argument could have been, “What about the other 99.99% of people that don’t even have them? What will they do in case of an emergency?”
I’d estimate 1996-7 or thereabouts. I know that was when, for me, the price of cell phone plans got so close to the price of beeper-pager plans that being able to actually talk on a mobile basis was worth springing for. While I won’t claim I represent the average American in a majority of ways, I suspect that cost motivates many in the same way it motivates me.
I hope and pray that cell phones never become a non-negotiable requirement but reality sets in and it seems too late for that. I agree with Cookingwithgas that the time passed somewhere around '91, for the same reasons. However with cell networks expanding and technology shrinking, especially with this ominous device on the horizon, the cell phone generation will become outdated like the VCR, the 8 track, and the TRS-80.
It won’t be long before cellular communications go in the same direction and the “Princes and Princesses” of the world will scoff at those who once held miniature microwave ovens against their heads. To answer your last question a little more philosophically, we will all become irrelevant about the time that we realize that our lives, no matter how grand and accomplished they may be, are but a mote upon the surface of the universe.