I use my cell phone to save time, and to make sure that I never miss out on opportunities to have a good time. If I save time using it related to any work/school purpose, I use that extra time to sit around the house and slack off. So surely the drive towards efficiency, for me, is just a way to reduce the amount of time I spend on the hassles of real life so that I can be lazy for longer periods of time. That, I suspect, is a little different that what the OP is concerned about regarding the go-go 24/7 attitude.
Anyways, I don’t even have a landline anymore. Why bother? You pay $17 a month for local service in my area, tack on $3 apiece for voicemail and call waiting (services free on a cell phone), then roughly $0.10 per minute for any long distance calls. So it’s $23 + long distance costs. Even if you only talked long distance for 4 hours, (240 minutes), that’s $24 in long distance. So your landline is costing you $47/month. My cell phone costs me $50, I get 700 peak and unlimited off-peak, and long distance is the same as a local call. Plus, I’m not tied to my apartment for all communications, I have a convenience of mobility. I’d say the cell phone is very beneficial to me, economically speaking.
Socially? The cell phone allows me to hear about social gatherings, partys, get-togethers. It contributes to my social interaction. I don’t consider phone conversations to be a substitute for physically meeting my friends, but it’s a good way to catch up with out-of-town friends just as landlines always were.
Cellphones, yes or no?
That depends what You are doing.
I once had a boss that could phone me whenever and wanted me to do this and that… It was very annoing, if I was in a middle of a meeting. So I closed it, mostly.
In the next working place I just told that I do not want one.
I had one privetly, but I did not tell them that, so I could work in peace.
Alltogether I have had mobile phones since 1982, but the 4 years ago I gave my phone to the guy that works nearest me.
I do not know the statistics now, but ther is more cellphones, per capita in Northern Europe than in USA. From time to time Finland is topping the statistics and now I think it is Sweden.
The enire telephone business in Finland is so big (NOKIA is the biggest Finnish company), that two years ago some ministery counted that the citizens does not need to pay taxes at all for two years, if the government puts all the money that it got through the telephone business into the budget. Well, the government paid depts and bought military-equipment etc., so we are still paying taxes…
OK. OK. Quite off topic, but I would just say that they are useful, but I do not need one.
Actually, if there is any shred of consistency, it is that when I am engaged in communication, I dislike being put off for other matters arising after my communication began. For example, when requesting service in a store, I hate it when the clerk tells me to wait while they handle a phone call. I consider that somehow similar to call waiting. Or, re: the OP, someone doing whatever with me, but then having to check their cell for incoming calls. You all sound very responsible.
IME, the vast majority of non-work related cell calls (and perhaps even a good number of work-related ones) do not seem to be crisis worthy of interrupting whatever else is going on. And when I hear folk yapping on the train, they don’t seem to be making huge intricate plans. An overwhelming majority of the calls - whether incoming or outgoing - are along the lines of:
“What’s up?”
“I’m on the train.”
“I said I’M ON THE TRAIN! You’re breaking up.”
“Gotcha clear again.”
“Not much, how bout you.”
“Probably just hanging out and going out later.”
“I’m losing you again. Can you hear me?”
"Oh well, I’ll call you later.’
Enough to make A.G. Bell turn over in his grave.
Another wrinkle along the lines of my suggestion that too many folk are not satisfied with what they have, and are always hoping something better elsewhere. It bugs me when I suggest plans with someone or invite them over, and they say they’ll get back to me. Sometimes I get the impression they are waiting to see if something “better” turns up. Either you can make it, or you can’t. Either you want to see me, or you don’t. Just a little different than how I choose to conduct my relationships.
i am never without my cell phone. i will turn it off for plays, concerts, movies and such, but generally it is on and in reach 24/7. i am the technical expert for a fire alarm company. i spend quite a bit of phone time with customers and other techs call me for support.
If you don’t want to be accessible 24/7, cellphones do not obligate you to. If I do want to be accessible 24/7, why should you care?
As others have pointed out, this means nothing. Just because cellphones were not essential in 1980 doesn’t mean they aren’t useful in 2002.
Cellphones are hardly the primary tool for carrying on a “vicarious relationship over the ether.” Mainly, they are for convenience. People don’t use cellphones for extended conversations when meeting in person would be convenient. They use them to be in communication when it would otherwise be difficult to have a face-to-face interaction. Home phones and the internet might devalue personal interaction, as one must be at home while using them, but not cellphones.
Cellphones are useful for making plans at the last minute. Call up a friend, they’re at the bar, you can stop by ten minutes later. That sort of thing.
Is there any rational reason you are more concerned with the people and things that happen to be physically close to you than with those that you actually care about. Maybe I’m a jaded city-dweller, but I’m usually surrounded by complete strangers, many of whom are thoroughly unappealing, and any number of whom might want to randomly harangue me about some nonsense, or just try to bum a cigarette. I figure I’m not really missing much if I can’t give these people my full attention.
