Oh, I have one. In fact, I have all of my other landlines (VoIP) forward calls to it. But I only use it for traditional phone calls, and mostly for business (I’ll admit–I just plain don’t like calling people on the phone … so I only do it for business or to find out when my wife is coming home from work).
can I enarge the OP’s question a bit-- to include " How do high schoolers react to their parents calling them on their mobile?"
When I was a teenager, (way,way before high-tech existed), the greatest thing in the world was being out of the house and driving the family car, because I was FREE and totally beyond reach of parental supervision…
(Sure, they asked where I’d been, and made sure I came home before midnight–but they had to rely on my answers, and I would only be as honest as I wanted to be.)
Think of That70’s show on TV. When we were partying in somebody’s basement , I would have simply DIED of embarrassment if my parents had tried to call me.
How do today’s teens handle it?
I was sitting on a college campus last week, and I noticed how many students were talking on the phone as they passed me. I started counting, and of the next 30 people, 22 were on the phone. It really struck me that young people are growing up in a different world than I did.
At 27, I’m not a “young person”, but I can tell you how I use my phone. For me, it’s primarily a data device. I use it to read the Dope and other websites on the go, to take pictures and upload them to my Typepad with the built-in LifeBlog client, to manage my calendar (I travel for work, so I’m in a different location almost every day), to find my way around with my Google Local client, to text my friends, and to wirelessly connect to the Internet from my iPAQ. Oh, and it makes phone calls too.
As an idea, last month I used 489 minutes of air time, sent / received 1853 messages, and transferred ~27 MB of data. That was a slow month – as of this month (which started on 02/04) I’ve already used 47 MB of data.
I’m 19, and I only use my cellphone for urgent calls, or if I’m stuck waiting around somewhere and call someone out of boredom. I don’t pay for my phone - my brother was on a 2-for-1 plan, gave the second phone to his wife, they divorced, I got the extra phone but he was still on contract. They did do a free text messaging promo for a month or two awhile back, and it was fun for a bit, but got tired quick. I’m not on the road much. Either I’m at home where I can be accessed by landline or instant messaging, at school where I can’t be disturbed, or at a friend’s house, so there’s a landline there. I have a ghetto ancient Nokia with a monochrome screen. I’m surprised it has browsing capabilities.
I didn’t worry about this when I still lived with my parents, I didn’t have friends who would have cared and we weren’t part of the ‘cool set’ groups who must remain cool at all times. My sister worried a lot though, she was one of the cool-molluscs. (Yes, that’s what we called them, suctioned on to their cool for dear life…)
She asked my parents to either get me to text her what they wanted to say (they hated typing text messages) or used a function on her phone that filtered callers form one category to ring silently so she she could excuse herself and then go ring them back somewhere out of the cool-o-meter’s range. She used that one more often since I [del]’ am not her bloody messenger Mum!![/del]’ sometimes didn’t feel like texting her for them. Or I wasn’t there. Or something.
But yeah, there are lots of ways now to filter which calls announce themselves, which calls ring out for all the land to hear across the vast expanse that is your classmate’s bedroom…
At 25 I know I’m leaving the building named ‘young’, but I still have to ignore calls from my mother at least twice a week. Mobiles have increased the ability to choose who can contact you and in what circumstances, and so do not impinge on the new-found freedoms of teenage years.
In some ways it increases their freedom- my kids gets to go places and do things that they might not have been able to if they didn’t have phones.Partly because I don’t have to hope they can find a working pay phone if they need to call home, and partly because I can call my son- if he didn’t have a cell phone, I’d have him stay close to home if we have to go out in the evening, since I know I can’t count on him to be back on time on his own. But it doesn’t really give them freedom to choose who can contact them and when- because one of the rules is that they answer our calls, and if for some reason one is missed, they must call back. Their friends all seem to have the same rule. When I was a teenager, if I was out, I was unreachable. My parents couldn’t call and say they wanted me home earlier than usual because they wanted to go to sleep, or because they got a call from my school, or becasue they need the tool I used yesterday and can’t find it.
I’m 27 (dear good gods) but I loves me my phone. It’s a work issue phone, but being able to check traffic, email, and text is great for me because I’m deaf. The txt function replaces the TTY rather nicely even if most of my friends are people who rarely use their phones that way.
Like: “Missed ferry, on next one.” Or “At store, need anything?”
The day they finally release one of those Windows Mobile-based phones I’ve been lusting over, I will be in line at the store. As soon as I figure out what the hell phone contracts are. 