Posted on 01/24/2022 1:06:47 PM PST by nickcarraway
In a world where many of us are glued to our smartphones, Dulcie Cowling is something of an anomaly - she has ditched hers.
The 36-year-old decided at the end of last year that getting rid of her handset would improve her mental health. So, over Christmas she told her family and friends that she was switching to an old Nokia phone that could only make and receive calls and text messages.
She recalls that one of the pivotal moments that led to her decision was a day at the park with her two boys, aged six and three: "I was on my mobile at a playground with the kids and I looked up and every single parent - there was up to 20 - were looking at their phones, just scrolling away," she says.
"I thought 'when did this happen?'. Everyone is missing out on real life. I don't think you get to your death bed and think you should have spent more time on Twitter, or reading articles online."
Ms Cowling, who is a creative director at London-based advertising agency Hell Yeah!, adds that the idea to abandon her smartphone had built up during the Covid lockdowns.
"I thought about how much of my life is spent looking at the phone and what else could I do. Being constantly connected to lots of services creates a lot of distractions, and is a lot for the brain to process."
She plans to use the time gained from quitting her smartphone to read and sleep more.
About nine out of 10 people in the UK now own a smartphone, a figure broadly replicated across the developed world. And we are glued to them - one recent study found that the average person spends 4.8 hours a day on their handset.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Reading body language, subtle voice inflections, facial expressions, etc. , all the in person stuff cant be duplicated by typing OMG and some dopy little emojis.
“She plans to use the time gained from quitting her smartphone to read and sleep more.”
That’s all I do on my phone...read. What’s the difference between phone and book?
But can’t get an Uber without one.
I am reading this on my cell phone.
All the bank accounts,
Medical and Social accounts.
Photos and download Memes.
.
We are Trapped!
With my LOWES app I don’t have to search for an employee to direct me to the right bin.
A speech pathologist friend said, even before covid masks, little kids aren’t developing language skills like they used to because the parents spend so much time using the aps they don’t talk to their kids. Now add masking, and many of today’s toddlers will be way behind in language skills.
Old timers like me just act dumb and pretend we don’t know how to use a cell phone. I can fake a limp if needed.
There are a lot of workarounds available—if you work hard on your drama skills.
;-)
It’s a tool.
I find it very useful - Gaia GPS, scribd for audiobooks, email :-(, driving directions, free republic.
The trick is to avoid getting sucked into constant social media nonsense. For instance, I gave up on trying to use facebook on the mobile app years ago. It was a resource and performance hog. Also, turn off notifications for most everything.
But as with all things, make it so you use the tool and not have the tool use you.
I had to get rid of my texting flip phone which I loved.
Verizon would no longer support it.
I’ve always insisted the kids call. To me texting back and forth is a very clunsy communication method compared to a voice call. Now I will say “text me that address or model number” ... Texts are good for one way type info xfers “Meet at restaurant at 7 pm. Addr is 123 main...”
Modern life, in general, is filled with so much minutiae to preoccupy our minds. It causes us to focus in on little picture issues, and discourages us from focusing out to ponder big picture issues.
In the pre industrial age, people were more likely to question the meaning of life, how we got here, what happens to us when we die. In the modern world, asking those kinds of questions can get you dismissed as a frivolous dreamer.....”why don’t you do something constructive like organizing your spread sheets!”
Modern life has made people less religious, less respectful of God. The cellphones and social media are just pushing us even more in that direction.
Bingo, they are great tools. You control the tool, the tool does not control you.
Same story here - loved my small 3G phone but I had to upgrade because of some security protocols( plus 2FA, etc) were not supported until 4G/5G.
PITA - damn phone is always beeping at me ...
tracfone would
LG Cosmos was perfect portable phone
I agree. The text asking “Can I go to the movies?” made me crazy. I needed info to give permission. Who with, who’s driving, what time are you going, and on. After texting 2 questions I always ended up saying call me. She learned to just call.
We did have a text signal for me to call her if she wanted out of a situation. She would text AA. That meant she needed me to call her immediately and tell her to come home. She could blame her crazy, strict parents and not lose face among the friends doing something she didn’t like or didnt want to do.
My last year in the corporate world, my wife bought me a flip phone for business, calling her, and the lack of phone booths in N. California.
I was working with my sales manager, and he didn’t know that I had a cell phone until I used it several times reconfirm appointments or to cancel them.
He wanted the number to my phone, and I said, “No! If you want me to have a cell phone, you buy it and provide the service.
A couple of weeks later, I had even higher up managers and top dogs working with me. Again, I refused to give them my number. We had bought that phone and a billion $ corporation could buy our phones and pay for their use if they wanted me to use one.
A top dog in our company needed to call the home office and he couldn’t find a pay phone. Finally, I let him use my flip phone to make a key call.
Two days later, that company was ordering 1,000 flip phones for sales reps, their managers and other people who worked out of the office.
I got kudos from some sales reps and boos from others.
Even then the non trusting managers figured out how to monitor their reps and managers in the field from the phones.
In the meantime my wife got addicted to using my flip phone for general use when not in her office.
When, I took early retirement, my flip phone came back to me and we got a small one from Trac phone for her personal use.
It didn’t have a camera and only made and received phone calls and no texts.
When she retired, our adult kids bought her a Trac smart phone.
She was a little hesitant to use it until she used it to line up a birthday party for a family member. Instead of calling everyone, she texted and got it arranged in minutes while I went into a store to buy something. She was hooked.
She became the texting and emailing Granny after that. I think that she is on her 3rd smart phone. I got her a small chromebook, and she prefers her smart phone for most uses and communication.
I set her up with a few contact lists for texting, calling or emailing.
Neither of us have any need/use for Facebook.
She is a rabid reader, and she has a Kindle paper white and a Fire tablet and her Chromebook for her e books.
Another winner was “Can I have some money?” I said anyone who texts that the answer will be an instant and irrevocable NO.
I have not ditched my smartphone, but 99% of the time, it is in my purse. I mostly take it out, just to charge it.
I cannot stand seeing everyone always so consumed by whatever is on their phones.
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