I do, however, get frustrated with folks that check their email only once a week.
I’ve got a cheap tracfone that I take with me in the car but I’ve barely used it.
I haven’t been able to figure out how to check email with my Obamaphone yet.
I had a job years I ago where we were paid to be onsite if something went wrong. On weekends and evenings we would need to be near a phone and could not leave town. Beepers let us leave the house for nearby trips. Pagers gave us a little for freedom. Pagers that you could send messages with were another step. Now many jobs like mine can be done anywhere in the world with an internet. My niece was able to spend a month in Asia because of this. They can might enslave some people but for me they meant more freedom.
I was once told by someone at a company I worked with that if I didn’t answer email in five minutes I looked bad. I was developing a product and I can either spend time in the lab doing that or sit in front of the computer waiting for the next missive.
A week under normal conditions is long. Every five minutes is ridiculous.
Example: I recently had lunch with a friend. She laid her cell/smart/whatever phone on the table as she sat down. As we sat and chatted and ate she glanced at the phone frequently* and picked it and looked at it twice. It was as if the phone was a third person sitting at the table. That seems a little excessive to me. Not to mention rude.
* after a few minutes of this I decided to count the glances. I stopped at 15.
I see people wandering around the store clutching their phone in their hand as if, literally, their life depended on it. I see people at the checkout line fumbling with their phone and their wallet trying to pull out their credit card. And holding up the line. Geeze, would it really hurt to be polite to those waiting to put the phone in your pocket for 15 seconds to complete the transaction?
[Rant off :]
Gotta admit, I check the news much too frequently. Am reading this on my new Samsung Galaxy S4.
Another frequent annoyance: why do folks think they need to yell into their cell phone? I could really care less about your situation.
I got totally decompressed last night after a couple of Moscow Mules! -;)
Want me 24/7 ? Pay me 24/7 !
I work in manufacturing out on the floor. If there is a problem with a product or a shortage with a part, I am expected to email the person responsible for ordering that part immediately. That person is less than 60 feet from the production floor. I am expected to check my email at least twice every 30 minutes...even though the emails are from persons within that 60 feet of me. For anyone to actually walk out on to the production floor from the office to review a problem is just simply not done.
We have NO working managers. Only ones that sit on their butts and have meetings with free catered food, drinks and two hour lunches during a day that lasts 8 hours for them.
Overtime is a no-no during the week, but we are expected to work at least 6 hours of overtime on Saturdays. Salaried personal are gone on the weekend, so if there is a problem I am expected to use my phone to text the appropriate persons about the problem.
Now I am completely mobile and can work just as effectively from an airport in LA - or on the beach - as I can from my Boston area office.
To me, that's freedom.
Still cell-phone free, and will die that way. No blackberry, i-Pod or any of that crap...just have no use for it.
I have one of the latest smarty-pants phones.
I use it to FReep.
I follow Heritage Foundation, FreedomWorks, Bretbart News, Twitchy, TheBlaze, UK Daily Mail, Fox News, etc-etc on the “twit” site.
I have a ping list for breaking email to folks that retrans my stuff to their lists.
More than one way to use “New Media!”
And work?
Yea, I got their phone number ID’ed so I can ignore their calls. It is almost always some slug that didn’t show and they want me to fill in.
.
On the other hand, the newly elected PA House 95th district rep is complaining that he'll need to surrender his government-owned Blackberry when he ceases to be a City employee:
www.ydr.com/politics/ci_23323521/q-amp-whats-kevin-schreibers-mind-he-prepares
I use my cell for calls & text. 250 minutes talking a month & about 400-500 text a month. Before that I carried a number read out only Pager and had to try and find a pay phone. It gives me a lot more freedom to leave the house for needed errands and some time out and peace of mind when doing so I would not otherwise have. I have no need to check email with it or browse though. For me the cell phone is a blessing.
I hated phones even before cellphones were invented by Al Gore.
I remember working for a major corporation in IT Systems support. There was an accountant two floors above us who hated phones. Whenever he needed help, and being in systems support, i.e. systems programmers, we didn’t really owe him support, applications programmers and operations folks did, but he would come down to see us, chat, tell us dirty jokes, and get help. Guess who was our group’s most loyal advocate in the corporate upper management.
In the cult film “Warm Bodies”, the zombie yearns to be human again, and while he narrates about the “good old days when people actually could communicate with each other”, the film shows a 10 second flashback, where there are lots of people, all texting and ignoring those around them.
Bet a lot of people missed that snarky part.
I’d say it’s exaggerated, but even here in the Philippines, you see this with the schoolkids in McDonalds...
Bob needs to take a muscle relaxant. What business is it of his how people spend their time? Yes, many peeps spend a lot of time staring at their iPhones, and I don’t care for incessant posting of videos and pictures, especially those meant to demean others. What someone wears to Walmart doesnt warrant being plastered on the internet. Still, the technology exists and Bob is assuming moral authority over those who use the technology he gets paid writing about.