I have never owned a smartphone a day in my life, not because I don't "do" digital technology, but because I get by on a Tracfone and a lightweight 8" tablet that I just hook to the web via hotspot. Just posting about this because every so often, I'll pull out the phone and get this look of shock, like a caveman might have looked back when he saw his first fire, LOL. I find the reaction funny.
shareI have a TracFone, too. The only reason why is in case I experience car problems and need to call for service. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with it.
It's almost comical to go to a store and watch the phone zombies shuffling around the place. They can't divert their eyes from that screen for even a few seconds. I call those silly gadgets StupidPhones® because they don't make anyone smarter. They are contributing to the general dumbing-down of our society. The phone zombies can't perform simple tasks without consulting some ridiculous phone app.
These devices are also an invasion of privacy, another reason why I refuse to own one.
My sister is one of those zombies, which is bizarre, because she's so much older than I am. (She's 65.) I wouldn't think someone in her age bracket would be addicted, but she's the most obsessed out of everyone.
She is one of those types who'll ask me to go out somewhere and then when we get there, will spend 80% of the time obsessively checking her phone while I'm trying to talk to her.
Other times, she'll burst in from work and the first thing out of her mouth will be, "OMG, DID YOU HEAR ABOUT [babbles bullshit about a non-event but makes it sound like the Kennedy assassination]!" And I'm, like, "What? I didn't hear that." "YESSSSSS!!!! IT'S ALL OVER THE NEWS!!!" "Where did you hear that?" "FACEBOOK!"
This phone addiction affects all age brackets. While millennials might make up the largest segment of the user population, I have also seen plenty of seniors in public with their eyes glued to the screen.
I don't get it. People will spend big money on parking, tickets and concessions to attend a sporting event and then spend the majority of the game staring at the StupidPhone®. Even during the Super Bowl. You could see it when they showed close-ups of the crowd.
My question is this: what the ____ is on those screens that is so-o-o important that the zombies can't divert their eyes for even a few seconds, especially when failure to do so can endanger lives? They walk in front of cars or fall down stairs because the StupidPhone® is more important than their own personal safety, or even worse, the safety of others.
Facebook. Now there's another waste of time and invader of privacy that I refuse to have anything to do with.
I have a theory about this.
I sometimes have bouts of social anxiety where I'm just on edge dealing with people. Yet, believing in self help, I've always taken the "just work through it" approach.
I think that smartphone usage is a security blanket for people trying to avoid facing certain states of anxiety, whether we're talking about social or otherwise. For example, I have a relative who has to use GPS (from her smartphone) for everything, including just walking out and about on the streets of Manhattan. Keep in mind that Manhattan geography is mindlessly simple. But even if you don't get it, you can just look up the directions on a map before you go out. But she insisted on using GPS just to do things like walk two blocks east from the train station.
I asked her, "Why don't you just use a map," and she said something like, "I don't like the idea of getting lost." And she didn't say "lost" in the sense of, "Oh, it's so inconvenient/annoying, etc." She sounded like "lost," as in those kids from Blair Witch Project. And that's laughable because it's IMPOSSIBLE to get lost like that in Manhattan, where you simply go a little bit in the wrong direction and all of a sudden, it's like being in the middle of national park surrounded by miles of woodland. So, GPS in her case was about avoiding this heightened sense of anxiety that she experiences about entering unfamiliar territory.
Yeah, well.. I do too.
It's incredibly cheap so I make no apologies. I do text a little but I don't care about twitter or Instagram or FB so I don't need to constantly be in any loop. Please never let me be one of those people that go through their entire day and never look up from their phones.
And I'm not technically challenged either ... I've been online since the late 90's..
What I do is carry my tablet everywhere and that does the job and at home I have a laptop and a desktop ..I am pretty addicted to being online.
I keep saying that I'll get a smartphone if my family let's me stop paying for cable..But the truth is that I don't really need one right now. If I start traveling or change my current habits I'll be getting one. But in the meantime it's difficult to rationalize paying for something that I don't really need.
In this day and age, I don't get the logic of needing a smartphone when there are so many free public hotspots, laptops and tablets are light as feathers =and= pay-as-you-go phones give you all the extraneous stuff that you can get with a smartphone, anyway.
5 years ago, it made sense. Tablets and laptops were super heavy then (you could fracture someone's skull with my Acer Aspire), and you couldn't do anything with a PAYG phone. Now you can text, take pictures, record video, etc.
I have flip phone.
shareI have a Tracphone too, but it is a smartphone. Its seems to do all the same things as fancier phones, voice recognition etc. I don't see a difference, and don't feel the need to spend more on a name brand phone.
shareI don't wish to fight over phone preferences
You do you
No, but I too used to be scornful of smart phones.
Then I was forced to buy one because my provider would no longer support my old flip phone. That was 15 months ago. One of the best things that ever happened to me. Smart phones are excellent! My phone is a phone, a camera, a calculator, a calendar, an alarm clock, a flashlight, and so much more.
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Such a small device with so many uses and capabilities. I suppose I get why some people aren’t really interested in them but they are wonderful pieces of technology.
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Yes, they are amazing. And a smart phone contains WAY more computing power than the Apollo 11 Guidance Computer back in 1969! It's also WAY faster. Let that sink in for a moment.
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