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To: upchuck
As someone who works in IT, I find them indispensable, flashlight, converter applications, looking up information, having an instantly available camera to take pictures of dialog boxes and configuration instructions, etc.

Out of work, I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, and music during my drive home, while I wash dishes, and do other mundane tasks. I use GPS, I find restaurants, I look for store hours of operation, etc.

On average, I probably send 0-3 texts a day, including ones where you are simply answering someone.

I probably make one phone call every few days. I am not now, and have never been, a huge phone talker.

I also carry a Swiss Army knife in my pocket, and I take that out between 3-10 times a day...slicing boxes, opening letters, unscrewing or prying something, cutting a piece of steak on the grill to ensure it is done, or slicing a pill in half.

So I view a cell phone as a valuable tool and time saver, and I treat it intellectually much the same as my Swiss Army knife.

But I also agree cell phones are destroying a piece of society that shouldn't be destroyed, and that is the direct interaction with other people, even with people you don't know. It is this:

and this...

And it is hard to deny the truth (and the humor) in this:

The cartoon is interesting, because I can relate. I was on a plane a while back, and some woman was having a loud argument with a flight attendant. I became aware that there was a forest of cell phones, held up above seat backs, recording it. As I looked forward towards the loud voices, I could see this swarm of rectangles, each displaying a small video screen showing the same event taking place. There was something I found infinitely creepy about that.

There is a generation of people now who have never seen many wonderful things with their own eyes. They only see things framed through the video capture screen of their phone. They didn't see their kid graduate, their phone did. They didn't see that concert with their own eyes. They didn't see that party, they saw a video.

I love technology, but there is something that is very narcissistically creepy about all this, especially (in my opinion) things like Facebook. Sure, I am a codger, but of all the people in my circle of life, I was the one who was first onboard with this stuff. First computer, first digital camera, first CD player, first digital music player, I had a Newton (three of them)...but when cell phones made it big...I just stopped there. I was the last one to get a cell phone, and when I did get it, it was because it had the list of things you outlined in your post. When the iPhone came out, I was on it for those things. (not to mention that I had been carrying a pager for twenty years, and found I could not use public phones anymore. I used to know where every phone could be found in a five mile radius around where I happened to be at any time, because I had to be able to respond. But one by one, those phones disappeared and stopped working.)

I love technology. I am no Luddite.

But with the cell phone technology...I won't have my face in it during a meal, or when I am with another person. I won't use it in a restaurant or public setting, even on a train. If I have to take a call or make one, I excuse myself and leave to go somewhere I can be alone. I do listen to music and audiobooks nearly constantly, but...I make sure that, in the right situations, I pull my Bose sound canceling buds out so I can hear what should be heard.

I don't often frivolously call or text people, and if someone calls or texts me, and I don't want to answer...I don't. But the problem I see is, there are a lot of people who are ruled by the technology. And, as this article points out, they are ruled with it while they drive their cars, and that makes me crazy.

21 posted on 06/19/2016 7:03:46 AM PDT by rlmorel (Embrace your Curmudgeonliness.)
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To: rlmorel

Thanks for the thoughtful post rlmorel. It’s all about controlling the technology, not letting the technology control us.


33 posted on 06/19/2016 7:13:43 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: rlmorel

You just perfectly described my position on this whole subject.

Useful and needed but within a context and as support devices not controlling your life devices.

Life is for living, not recording.

Keep as small an internet footprint as possible.


38 posted on 06/19/2016 7:17:11 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (Don't mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance, or my kindness for weakness)
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To: rlmorel
My experience with this technology is similar to yours. I'm not a "phone yakker" - in fact I loathe talking on the phone and try to keep any phone conversation under a minute (the women in my life don't understand that). Not a big texter either but it does come in handy when I am trying to find somebody in a crowd.

That said, smartphones are wonderful technology and I also subscribe to podcasts, listen to music, read books and take pictures with it. The apps I have are fantastic, such as approving and submitting expenses for work, booking hotel rooms on the fly, finding a restaurant and getting GPS instructions to get there, etc.

A few weeks back, I found myself unexpectedly in a hospital emergency room where I had to wait for several hours. Normally in these captive situations, I'm stuck trying to entertain myself with the crappy magazines on the tables or the dreck they are showing on the TV set. But I whipped out my phone and was able to keep up with the emails at work and also get a few chapters read on the Lincoln biography I was reading at the time. Those few hours flew right by.

84 posted on 06/19/2016 8:27:39 AM PDT by SamAdams76 (Delegates So Far: Trump (1,542); Cruz (559); Rubio (165); Kasich (161)
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