Giving up your phone

Yes. That means something very different.

 

I have a smart phone. I just don't need/use a lot of its features.

 

Putzed around the city for a few hours taking photos of people and their toys.

Granted, it's NYC but still. No one was without.

http://incrediblekulk.blogspot.com/2012/03/picture-show-sould-out-on-technology.html

 

Never give up. Never surrender.

 

We Never Lost It!

 

In my early 20s after college, I suddenly could no longer afford a cell phone or credit card. I went three years without either and enjoyed it immensley. I liked that people could not get a hold of me whenever THEY wanted to. I liked the ability to go off the grid on my day off and not deal with the rest of the world.

However, my mom got frustrated of not being able to get a hold of me, and so for a birthday she got me a cell phone and paid the bill. That was the beginning of the end for me. After I eventually upgraded to an iPhone, the damn thing has become my life. I get anxious when I am separated from it. I don't know what I'd do without my source of music and being able to google what I wanted when I wanted, and of course I like to think I'm a bigger deal than I really am and don't want to miss a call or message on the off chance someone is actually trying to get a hold of me.

It saddens me, really.

 

That's why I'm happy without a smartphone.

 

Use an two apps that use Google Voice for Voice over IP calling. Talkatone let's you call using Wi-Fi or 3G/4G, and GVConnect (integrates with Talkatone) for texts, voicemail, and dialing. If you don't want to use an app to call, additional call time past 100 minutes are 10 cents/minute.

 

When I first got my iPhone, it was glued to my hand. Now, not so much. I don't talk on the phone much and really only pick up calls when I'm driving - I use my BluTooth, don't worry.
That said, it's incredible. I have a professional camera, but I don't need to lug it everywhere because I have an instant point and shoot. I have a video recorder in my pocket. I don't need to buy a digital recorder. I'll never get lost again. If someone is making a BS argument, I can tell them why it's BS without guessing. When I have to take the Browns to the Super Bowl, I don't have to wish I had a folddown table for my laptop.
If push came to shove, I could live without it. I could carry my Nikon everywhere. Buy a new digital recorder. If I need to look up an address or number, I could google text (if you haven't tried, text to GOOGL).
But the iPhone is way easier.

 

Soooo, technology led to cell phones and pagers, the internet, laptop computers, two-way pagers, texting, smart phones, mobile web, ipads, etc etc.

All of this KILLED our industry and cost many of you your jobs.

But apparently many of us fucking love smartphones? Really?

Doesn't anyone miss a world when to learn something, you had to pick up a newspaper that you could trust, and rely on? For which a legitimate expert got paid a living wage to deliver the news? Rather than some unemployed 20-something aggregating Top ## ____ Lists for some website, or just another AP news feed rewritten from a press release?

How about a world in which you could live your life without constant interruption? Without having to deal with a thousand people who like you but whom you don't like that won't stop sending you links and images and gifs and other garbage?

I believe that one should value their life and their time. I'm skilled with computers, I can code HTML, I've done the 21st century media thing. But I sure as hell miss the old days.

 

Yeah, but it was a shit job so no big loss.

 

... the following day, and only your local one, if you were lucky enough to not live in a podunk town that didn't cover anything outside the county limits?

Absolutely not.