"Okay. For this assignment, I will need you to turn in your cell phones".

I know what you're thinking. From the title, I started off another post by taking an un-cited quote out of context. Not to worry, though. I'm getting to the point. My post for today is about a new, amazing TV series called 'Girl Meets World'.

Now, normally, I would provide a brief synopsis of the series, but since the emphasis of this blog is "Technology" and not "Pop Culture", (although, don't get me wrong, the two generally work hand in hand when it comes to adoption), I'm going to forgo a full inclusion of said synopsis, and provide a link to one instead:

Girl Meets World Synopsis

Anyway, the episode focuses on, like most do, the classroom that Cory teaches in. One of his students, Riley (whom, is also his daughter), can't seem to verbalize her thoughts aloud (I can kind of relate to this). Maya, who we find out later doesn't have a smart phone, doesn't have a problem with this at all, apparently, as she is trying to get Riley to interact with her crush, Lucas via face-to-face communication. 

So the next thing we know, the bell rings, and they all enter Cory's classroom. The first thing Cory does, is he starts ranting about how nobody can communicate with each other anymore. By this point, another student shows up to his class late, explaining that "her goldfish died", with a completely straight face, showing no outward emotion whatsoever. Cory then uses this opportunity to further drive his point home and by this point he throws out the term "mindless, emotionless zombies", during which quote, the camera switches over to Riley and Maya gently nibbling at each other's ears and making growling noises. So, what Cory (or "Mr. Matthews") does to remedy this severe disappointment is he tells the class that they are going to the library to do an assignment on communication and he starts to pair people off and Maya and Farkle get paired up, and, much to Cory's dismay, Riley gets paired up with Lucas. Another curve ball that he throws out is that everyone has to turn in their cell phones, as stated in the quote that I used for the title of this post.

Now I've watched this episode a few times, per its Disney channel reruns, and one thing that I've learned from this episode (although I could be wrong) is that Riley is a complete introvert. They portray this fact in a few scenes: First at the beginning when Riley is texting Lucas in the hallway, and also during the library scene. 

I will admit that I can relate to this, especially because I have an easier time writing down my thoughts as opposed to verbalizing them. Anyway, before we get to the library scene, after school, Riley is sitting down at dinner with her family and everyone seems to be socializing except her, which, of course, everyone notices. Cory, Topanga, and Auggie, then try to get her to socialize by having everyone talk about their day, and then she lists everything that she thinks has gone wrong, like when her phone was taken away, and also that her dad was teaching her History class.

Anway, back to the library scene: So, they get to the library, and they're looking through shelves and shelves of books, and, of course, there's the stereotypical "old lady" librarian standing behind the circulation desk, whom Farkle immediately tries to flirt with, and who "shushes" them every time the group tries to interact with each other. Finally the librarian admits that the real reason she had been "shush-ing" the group is because she had been observing Riley and Lucas and found that they had been completely ignoring each other, which really bothered her (the librarian). Lucas decides to go with Maya to go pick a book out for reading, and the first book he pulls happens to be called "Tales of Human Interaction", to which Maya responds "Good job, Quick Draw", implying that he picked the right book for their assignment. So time passes, and Maya is paired off with Farkle and Riley is paired off with Lucas, and for a while, nothing happens. So Maya is reading their book aloud with Farkle and she comes to a particular quote: "Not until we put down our cell phones and look into each other's eyes do we truly know each other (or get to know each other)". 

Now somewhere around during this episode, Maya admits that the assignment wasn't that much of a sacrifice and shows Farkle a pencil sketch of a moon landscape, which he keeps. Anyway, the due date of the report arrives, and everyone is back in Cory's classroom. Maya and Farkle are the first to report, and Farkle admits that he thought that technology made life better in all aspects, but then he realizes and admits he was wrong and shows the class the pencil sketch that Maya gave him earlier in the episode, which I felt was truly amazing. 

Finally, the episode ends with the lead characters in the Matthews' apartment, and Riley explains how she learned that she doesn't always need her phone to communicate and Topanga realizes what has happened. So she tells Cory that he taught their daughter how to feel. Well, naturally, since Cory has adopted the persona of "over-protective dad", he questions this analysis, and asks Topanga how many "feelings" he gave Riley, and she tells him he gave her "all of them", which sends Cory into further denial with the admission of "I didn't mean to do that!"

Having not grown up in the "always on" era, I can truly appreciate the lesson they were trying to teach. I too, find that sometimes the existence of technology can be overwhelming, therefore, I try to choose carefully when I adopt a new product (but that's another post for another day).

And another picture of the main cast, just for good measure.

Now, for those of you who read this, and think "Wow. That sounds awesome. I want to see that", well, you are in luck. At the end of this article, there will be a link to the episode so that you can watch it at your leisure.

Initially the link was for a YouTube video, but Disney, being the greedy corporate bigwigs that they are (everyone wants to cripple free TV) forced Google to take it down, so the new link will send you to Amazon.com, where you can buy it for $2 or in HD for $1 more here.