Giving up your phone

Aaaaaannnd, I just checked my phone after reading your post.

 

I have a TracFone. I carry it everywhere.
It's there if I need a phone. It costs about $100 a year.

A phone is not a priority in my life. I like that part the best.

 

Interesting topic. I find that the longer I'm out of journalism the less important my phone becomes for work. I had my work email pushed to my phone when I worked for a paper -- you never knew what was coming down that needed attention. But now, I turn off the sync on my work email on my iPhone. It's still there if I want it, but I have to physically make the effort to go check it. It sounds silly but I find if I actually have to expend some effort to see what's happening after hours, I don't do it.

On the flip side, since we are in day six with our newborn, I've found we've done more cool stuff with the phone than ever. The ability to send a photo of the baby to her great-grandma in Missouri via the phone is a hell of a lot better than developing film and sending her prints. It's bringing the extended family a lot closer into this new phase in our life, which is great.

 

I didn't get a cell phone until the end of high school and I don't miss being tethered to the house, waiting for a response after leaving someone a message. I suppose I could have planned better, but plans change. I'd rather be able to adjust on the fly if needed.

I could see if I were really settled, didn't have a ton of friends or family from far away, was willing to accept some miscommunications with kids on account of not being contactable, I could manage it. Though I honestly never get that concerned if I'm away from it for too long. I leave it at home whenever I go to the gym.

In the end, I think it's convenient and never saw many massive downsides. I don't see the bad outweighing the good in terms of accessibility, and always saw a heavy lens of nostalgia when people talk about the "great" in-depth conversations they used to have.

 

You wondered how much better your life could be without a phone.
You also said you never use the phone you have.

So how much better could your life be without the phone that you never use anyway? Good question!

 

I lost my charger a couple weekends ago and wasn't able to get a replacement for a couple days, so my phone was dead. Found that while I would have liked to have had it, it didn't necessarily bother me that I didn't.

But it's still nice to have.

 

An iPhone with T-Mobile's prepaid $30/month unlimited texts and data, plus 100 minutes a month talk time is a great deal.

 

Do you call through Skype?

 

I think I could go without my phone.
90 percent of the my texts are work-related. And the other 9 percent is trivial BS with the wife and family.

I play my Simpsons app a lot. And Sodoku when I am bored.

 

Once you get a smartphone, you'll quickly wonder how you ever lived without the thing.

 

Give up my smartphone? That accounts for a full 30 percent of the improvement in my standard of living since 1995 based on my discussions with doctorquant and Ragu. The other 70 percent is some combination of GPS, the Internet, HD TV and run-flat tires.

 

Actually, I use the data portion of my phone quite a bit. I believe what I said was no one ever calls me. That just means I don't use the phone part.