Cell phone against Custom

Cellphone or mobile phone has increased the efficiency of communication among people within a family, community, society, nation and the entire world. You can be in South America and make a call to someone in Fiji over a few seconds or someone in Thailand can dial a call to another in the Solomon Islands. These mobile devices have enabled communication among people over vast distance as if they were sitting around a table with a cup of coffee.

The Solomon Islands has joined the international community with the usage of cell phones for passing messages, communication and chatting. These newly introduced devices are received with gratitude, however, as it continues to expand influence in communication, it does interrupt and damage custom and tradition of indigenous Islanders by creating an increase in the level of dating, marriage breakups and domestic violence.

Before the introduction of cell phones, communication among opposite sex is regarded as prohibited to certain degree by Solomon Islanders. In Malaitan societies especially, boys are not permitted to chat with girls whether they related to or not in a circular environment. It's a serious offense and once get caught by girl's relatives, would cost a large sum of money as in a form of compensation. In the traditional era, dating is a secret game and has always been played secretly at the back of both parents and brothers. With the introduction of mobile phones, these taboos are no longer effective as the boundaries has been violated. Dating is not a serious game any more as these devices creates an easy way of doing it with out being caught. It can be done anywhere at anytime. You can be in your room or among family members but when your lover calls to say hi there was no boundaries and fear to scare you of since the communication was secret between both your phones. 

Marriage breakups is another issue that has been on the rise since the introduction of these mobile devices. There are many issues among people of the Solomon Islands where fights break up between husband and wife. Resting after a hard day at home, there the phone rings, it was a call for the father. The mother quickly picked up the phone to answer. As usual, the caller asks for the father and requested a conversation, the mother raised her voice with a reply, who are you? After the conversation, the mother turns around with an angry look on the face and start questioning the husband. It all ends up in a fight, separation and of course death. This is a typical situation these devices introduced us with. Hence, it is wise to be mindful of how we use these cell phones to avoid such problems which will lead to divorce.

Nearly, 80 percent of Solomon Islanders have owned a phone and these issues are getting higher and higher each day, the problem of interest is shall we adjust our custom against the use of these devices or should we continue to adopt the way it was used by the international communities.