Memories like these amuse me now. Just a few years later I was back on BYU campus as a masters student, and while walking up a walkway one evening as most students were coming home from classes, I started counting cell phone users, then realized that it would be more efficient to count non-cell phone users, and there were precisely two. I had one myself by that point. But it was not a flip phone, and I still had roommates without cell phones, and the house we shared had a landline. I had probably sent about two text messages in my life, and they were only in response to messages that were sent to me, and I remember being really worried that they would double my cell phone bill. They didn't, but they did cost me a few cents each.
Now, back on BYU campus once again as a professor, my students don't even try to hide the fact that they are sending text messages during class. It doesn't cross their minds that they should.
The other night I read this passage in a book. It's a book by Neil Gaiman, and if you've read Neil Gaiman you know that he's prone to using exaggeration for comic effect, and that's precisely his intent here:
"Clarence was talking to someone on his portable phone, a slimline piece of fold-out engineering that made the Stark Trek communicators look bulky and old-fashioned. He turned it off, pushed down the antenna, put it into the Armani pocket of his Armani suit, where it did not even make a bulge."
It's just that in 2011, the comic exaggeration of a cell phone being more high-tech than Star Trek and not even making a bulge in someone's Armani pocket falls just a little flat. I chuckled at this passage for the wrong reasons.
My point is that cell phone technology has progressed a lot. Kind of a moot point. But my point in making that point is that I have been resisting that progression. My personal cell phone use is basically the same as my cell phone use almost a decade ago when I got my first, except that now I have a cooler ringtone, send more text messages (but avoid long text conversations), and snap about three cell phone pictures a year. That's really not what cell phones are for, anymore. Yes, they're for calls, and for text messages, but they're also for email and mapping routes and looking up movie times on the internet and playing cool touchscreen games and updating your Facebook status in the moment. I want to be up-to-date and tech-savvy and all that, but to be honest, these things are not what I want my cell phone to do. I just want to make calls. It kind of bugs me that smartphones are the Way Things Are Going because I feel like someday, and probably someday soon, I'm going to have to Go That Way myself in spite of my sincere desire not to have internet access at all times and in all places.
I bring this up now because something really big is happening on February 10. On February 10, Verizon customers will be able to own their very own iPhone and get Verizon service for it. In case you didn't catch that the first time, February 10 is a big day.*
This caught my attention because I like Apple and I like iPhones and Verizon has always been my carrier. And iPhones have much better phone cameras than regular low-tech flip phones like mine. Which is a lame reason to abandon my principles. And I probably won't. It's just a little tiny germ of a seed of an idea of a thought. But many major decisions in my life have started out as little tiny germs of seeds of ideas of thoughts.
I am curious to hear from people who have or have not gone over to a smartphone and why you have or have not made the leap and why you do or do not regret the choice you have or have not made. It is very likely that I will just look into buying a new camera, and very likely I will not wind up with either a new camera or a smartphone, but I am in a brief window of time where I might be open to being converted. Or talked out of it.
(Oh yeah, and more book reviews on the book blog: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt.)
* Trust me. You want to click on at least one of these links.
7 comments:
Your story is my story, Amy. To the T(ext message).
Dad suggested I get a smart phone the last time around and I did (a Droid [LOVE IT]). I wasn't exactly sure what the point was either at that time, but now I know. I don't spend all my time on the Internet but it sure does come in handy at times. For instance, driving home from Mammoth, we'll pass a sign for some site. Yes, I could write it down and look it up later, but instead I whip out my phone and a couple of minutes later we find out what that site is and everything about it. Dad wants to know how the basketball game is going, and a couple of minutes later I tell him. Etc, etc, etc. It's actually pretty fun and useful. I often just leave my computer home for short trips because my phone gives me what I need anyway. And the GPS is amazing. How wonderful not to have to buy a separate unit, and on the Droids you don't pay anything extra for it (I have no idea about the iPhones). Anyway, it's one of those things that you don't think you want or need until you have one and then you can't live without one from that time on. It costs a little extra each month but for us right now, we can handle it just fine.
By the way, I HEARD (don't know if it's true or not) that the Verizon iPhone coming out is not the most current and people should wait for the next one. Worth researching if you find you're serious.
p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY on February 10!!!!
I already have an iPod, iPod touch and iPad. I feel like I'm technologied out! However, if my little flip phone (I LOVE the flip phone!) ever dies, I will be going to an iPhone.
Granted, I had my own cell phone in 4th grade and remember one time I had a bill of $200 for text messages alone (which, for a high school student was daunting), so I'm less avoiding it and more just faithful to my current phone.
This year I decided to come down firmly in the I Don't Like Apple camp, to Catherine's dismay.
That said, a couple of years ago a friend and I drove to California for a race in March or February. We got hit with a blizzard on our way home, and by the time we hit Scipio it was dark and the roads were pretty much impassable. We used his iPhone to find the only motel in town and then to call it. WE got a room, and when we got over there we found out that not only was it the last room, three people had come in and been turned away during the five minutes between when we called and when we showed up. So, no iphone and we would have been sleeping in the car in a snowstorm.
If the cost doesn't bother you (big if), I can't see any reason not to have a smart phone. You're more likely to regret not having a feature than to regret having it.
My students had me download this so we could watch it as a class together: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/amber_case_we_are_all_cyborgs_now.html.
As I have a bad landline connection, I have to walk over to use the minimal broadband, and my cellphone was stolen, I decided it didn't really matter. I don't need to know right away where the Adirondack Mountains. I can look it up in a few minutes or hour and I'll still be interested. I don't need to send my thoughts to someone who's not talking to me anyway. Anyone I really need to talk to I can just walk over and knock on their door. On the other hand, this is from the person who's decided she needs to move because she's by herself and unconnected. Speaking of which, I'm calling my Walden Pond experience (or Zion's Camp experience) to an end in June :) If you want a pocket computer with phone capabilities, why not? If you don't, why?
I have had a blackberry and now own an iPhone and while I love all the things the iPhone does the most life changing thing about the iPhone ... only having to charge and carry one device. No longer do you need your laptop, camera, phone, mp3 player ... and all their assorted cords. Life changing.
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