FTR, my interpersonal communications are not near zero. It’s just that they’re mostly conducted over the telephone, as befits normal human beings. To see how this is done, watch any 1950s movie or TV show.
Somewhere there is a black-and-white 8x10 glossy of me, at the age of about 3 or 4, talking on the telephone. My preferred mode of communication hasn’t changed in all the intervening years. Aside from emergencies, pretty much the only use my cell phone gets is that the kid who mows my lawn, being one of those modern urchins bred in this technological age, insists on texting rather than calling to announce his imminent arrival.
To my everlasting regret, I’ve allowed email to become an accepted mode of communication, which has attacked me not just with spam but by disabling my preferred email client app of many years because it doesn’t support some stupid new security protocol. This is the kind of shit that I despise.
I’m old enough to remember when the phone manufacturers were racing to that endpoint. I think they figured out that people would end up losing/breaking them. Which would enable the sale of replacements, but at some point the masses would rebel.
Now of course it seems like Apple is going the other way, and soon the next IPhone will be the size of an IPad.
No, it’s that screens became vastly more important, from something that displayed text to something that could display websites and images. Then they needed to add space for processing power to run all of the stuff that could benefit from the display. And so on and forth until you get to where we are today.
Though we seem to have reached the edge of what people will accept for where “phone” ends and “tablet” begins, which is why companies are pivoting to folding screens.
Hardly, my good man. What need have I of a watch? A trifling matter like the time of day concerns a man of leisure such as myself not at all. I do carry a bejeweled money clip containing the thousand dollar bills I use to kindle my cigars. Lit of course with a bejeweled cigar lighter held by my naked butleress du jour. One of several kept in rotation.
Actually, once I am living alone and control my own thermostat, I expect pants will be one of the things I stop routinely wearing. How that affects my mobile is TBD.
I like to listen to podcasts when I do household stuff like dishes, laundry, garbage, etc… You would think my cell phone would be perfect for this but it’s way too heavy, and my sweatpants way too comfy to hold all that weight. So I have a separate device specifically for listening to podcasts while I do my chores:
SanDisk 8GB Clip Sport MP3 Player, Black - LCD Screen and FM Radio - SDMX24-008G-G46K https://a.co/d/1Nj62c1
I bought my first clip jam in the 2000s, but when that died I replaced it with the above clip sport in 2018. Looks like when this one dies I’ll have to try and find a different model since it appears to be discontinued.
I weighed both just now with my postal scale:
Pixel 4A: 6.7 ounces (5¾" x 3" x ½")
Clip Sport: 0.6 ounces (2¼" x 1⅜" x ½")
I don’t, mostly. Once in a while there is a definite need to catch a call or something, but that is rare for me. I just don’t need to be “on call” most of the time when I’m at home. I have a tablet anchored in the living room that I use to look up stuff, like IMDB, partly because I hate trying to look up internet stuff on my phone. When I’m at home I’m in baggy and comfortable clothing, and something as big and heavy as a smart phone tends to drag my pants down.
I can certainly see why some people would want to, and why others would not want to. What I don’t see is the need to make a religious war out of it, nor to insist that the way you do it is the way that everyone should.
At night I place my phone on my nightstand and use it as my alarm. If I know I am going to be texting someone (for example, 3 days a week I text my sister to arrange bike riding time), I bring it downstairs with me. Or if I expect a doctor or someone to be calling. Or I bring it if I know I will be driving. Otherwise, it may stay on my nightstand all day. I do not bring my phone when I walk the dog. I do bring it when biking, in case of emergencies.
If my phone makes it off the nightstand, I likely place it one of 3 or so places. I do not bring it with when I move room to room. And my preference is to have nothing in my pockets when at home - net even something as slim as a phone.
With the rare exception of emergencies, I was fine with landline and answering machine technology. Weeks pass without my receiving a non-spam phone call on my cell. I don’t have to “run” to answer my phone. When I get to it, if I see it was someone I want to talk to - or if they leave a VM - I can call them back. I cannot recall the last time I received an “emergency” call or text that couldn’t wait a few hours or a day until it was returned.
My phone is often on silent - so I wouldn’t even know if it rang. Not intentionally, but I’ll often turn it off for a concert or something, and forget to turn it back on. I have no audible notifications. I do not uderstand whay so many folk feel they need an immediate audible notification that someone somewhere texted them.
I do not like using my phone for much of anything other than texts/phone calls. I just do no tlike the size/interface. I have a very light Mac Air which I prefer to use for the Dope or any computer uses while at home. As a rule, that is closer to me than my phone.
I didn’t really like talking on the phone in the days of landlines either, so this isn’t a huge change.
I agree with much of your post. And I know this thread asks about while at home. I DO have somewhat of an issue when someone visits me in my home, and has their phone on, alerting them to texts/phone calls. It mildly irritates me to hear the notifications if the person doesn’t answer them, and it irritates me more if they pick up the phone and start a non-urgent phone call in the middle of a conversation we were having.
Same here. “Hey, isn’t he that guy from such and such a show?”
“Huh. I’m not sure. I see the resemblance. Maybe?”
“Well, my magic rectangle can tell us!”
I keep all sorts of stuff in my pockets all of the time. (Part of the trick to this is to wear men’s cargo pants.) The phone that can survive a day with me is also small enough not to interfere with the rest of the collection.
But then, I often also wear my outdoor shoes in the house. Most days I go in and out of the house a lot; it would be a nuisance to change them all the time.
Sigh.
What on earth is more civilized about a text than about a phone call or for that matter an email?
The phone that will survive a day with me is very hard to text on, and difficult to read anything more than a few words long on.
No…unless on rare instances where there’s a call I’m expecting that I just abso-tively poso-lutely hafta’ hafta’ take. Often enough in those instances, the call will come while I’m showering, and so it rest right outside the shower door.
I have my phone on me always. My gf works from home with her office door closed, so I cannot interrupt her to tell her I’m taking Kizzy and Simi walking in the woods. Instead, if she takes a break from work I’ll get a “where you at?” text and I reply.
I also use my phone for pictures, measuring things, communicating via text with friends, etc.
