I would argue that a cell phone is, in fact, a necessity these days, at least in some parts of the country. This is because there are no fucking public payphones anymore. When I was in college, I missed the last bus out of town because the schedule had changed, and eventually had to go into a pizza place and use their phone to call a cab so I could get home.
Standing ovation and ten minutes of applause. I hate cell phones with a vitrol usually only reserved for sentient lifeforms with horrific criminal records.
Did you really stand up in front of your computer and clap for ten minutes? I hope you did because that would be sort of tragically awesome.
Not necessarily. Getting rid of my land line and going 100% cell was a wise financial decision on my part.
I paid $80/month for my land line, and that doesn’t include long distance. I pay 10¢/minute for my cell phone. Considering that I’m on the phone maybe 2-4 hours a month, and usually long distance, I’m saving a mint.
Last year I spent a lot of time calling India, Laos, China, and Japan. That would’ve sucked on my land line.
About as tragically awesome as somebody who thinks that actually happened.
Actually standing up and clapping for 10 minutes would be only marginally more ridiculous than figuratively standing up and clapping for 10 minutes about someone’s weak-sauce cell phone rant, so I figure the odds are about even on whether she did or didn’t.
In one of the cases, the person in mind had been recently laid off. US cellphones generally work by contract, and you can’t just “ditch the cellphone” unless you want to be large, extreme penalties.
It is true that US cell phones cost much, much more than the exact same services elsewhere. My Chinese cell phone bill was around $5.00 a month. My Cameroonian cell phone would eat through maybe three or four dollars every few weeks. The US, as far as I know, is unique in billing both the caller and the receiver, and charging to receive text messages. This would be considered absurd anywhere else. Even charging for text messages is a bit of a push. They cost literally nothing to transmit. Nothing at all.
One of the major complaints in the article is that overages are absurdly expensive, and that plans are priced so it is hard to avoid either overpaying or paying overages. I’ve experienced this myself. My data use, which is in the realm of normal, falls just above the cutoff for the least expensive plan, every damn time. So I pay the full 10.00 upgrade for what is probably .50 of data.
With regards to cell phones and kids… Us old-timers can’t use our experiences to say that since we didn’t need a cell phone, neither do kids. For kids today, texting is a major form of communication. If you deny your kid a way to text, they will be left out. Even if you have a home phone, many kids are reluctant to call the house phone to talk to their friend. They want to call their friend directly. If your kid doesn’t have a direct line, their friends may not call at all. So keep that in mind as you are deciding cell phone use for your child.
However, kids don’t need an internet connection on their phone, which is where a big part of the cost is. Get the kid a phone with a few minutes and unlimited texting and they’ll be pretty well set.
I dunno; I sometimes actually DO laugh out loud.
I’m not going to say no one should ever have a cellphone; they are very useful devices. Once again, though, this is a situation where people need to distinguish “want” from “need.” You might need a cellphone; you probably don’t need five smartphones for $250 a month.
Can we broaden this rant to include cellphone addicts who can’t walk five feet without their eyes glued on a screen? I submit that we need to start a public awareness campaign that if you’re walking slowly or come to a complete stop due to your electronic device, you need to take it off to the side of the flow of foot traffic, just like we expect slow drivers to stay in the rightmost lane.
You’re assuming employment will be available for said kids. Right now in my area adults with a couple decades of work experience are having trouble finding work, much less some 16 or 18 year old with zero experience.
That said - the kids can use pre-paid phones if the parents feel a need for their progeny to carry one. Issue $10 of minutes a month and if they run out - well, they’ll figure it out quickly.
Or the kids can do set chores in exchange for a weekly allowance if they can’t find work outside the home. I have a friend who did that with his kids - he had a list of chores and how much he’d pay for them. His son wants money to go to a movie? He’ll split firewood (they use a wood stove for heating much of the time) or mow the lawn or do the family laundry to earn it. Once in awhile the siblings that hadn’t gone off to college yet would squabble because they all wanted to earn some extra allowance and there wasn’t enough work to go around, but as my friend says, he’d rather have the problem of finding more for his kids to do than the problem of getting them up off their butts.
Better than your weak-sauced insult/joke.
Hey, its the Pit and I am just trying to move things along here.
The smartphone is what is not the necessity. No, you don’t need one.
A cellphone is pretty useful, though I would argue you could still function without one.
I am reminded of some recent commercial (though what it is actually for I forget). It shows 4? guys in a big SUV? driving around in the woods/mountains checking their cell phone coverage. Eventually they find the “right” spot and set up camp.
The right spot is a place without cell phone coverage. I can relate.
Hey, I left out the coolest part, that you work as a doctor in prisons . . .
ON THE MOON!
Why DO people keep pretending that landlines were free? I seem to remember them costing more than the $40 a month plan I have now, at least if you ever made any long distance calls.
Another thing people seem to forget is that cell phone plans vary depending on whether you own your own phone, as I do, or are leasing\making payments on one as part of your bill.
Also, there are prepaid plans that cost $0 - yes ZERO - per month, you only pay for the minutes. Try that with a landline.
I love my Android smart phones, I’m on my third. But no question in my mind that it’s a luxury. I’d go to a dumb phone in a minute, hell maybe even just a land line, if it was financial burden.
I often compare the smart phone situation to the PC market in the past, where I was an enthusiast and like to get latest (or least later stuff). But I guess it’s pretty different, what with a lot higher percentage of young people wanting smart phones. When I was in high school, only the geeks cared about PCs.
Yup. I think a lot of Dopers have a fundamental disconnect with what it’s like to be a teen these days. I remember reading a thread where someone asked why teens are no longer chomping at the bit to get their licenses and the thread exploded with people saying they couldn’t imagine not having a license as a teen because it was their ticket to freedom. Cell phones are the same way now.
Back in the day, you needed the license to drive over to see your friend at all. Now, they can Skype their friends for video chat. Back in the day, you bitched about your parents forcing you off the phone because you were tying up the line. Now, they text each other.
Get them basic cell phones with unlimited texting and no data connection like Filmore says.
I’m 26 years old and I view most of the Internet as ‘get-off-my-lawn’ territory. In Dopeland, I feel like everyone is yelling that at me! 
On the one hand, I agree completely with Machine Elf.
On the other hand, filmore and others are right. The train has left the station as far as societal expectations of communication. Friends, family, and employers increasingly expect to be able to reach people instantly, or maybe in a few hours if you’re really busy. It’s all well and good to say, “I make plans and then keep them,” but when everyone else is used to making plans or changes to plans off-the-cuff, not having a cell phone means that you will get left out and left behind.
I’m 32, and remember a decade ago before I had a cell phone I would leave the house for the day, and be completely out of touch with anyone until I got home in the evening. The plans I had when I left were the plans I had for the day. I know no one (below a certain age) who operates this way anymore.
I work with middle- and high-schoolers, and they don’t even know how to live that way. The world has changed.
Fucking Luddites. Occasionally one forgets how the Straight Dope posters revel in this type of, um, braggadocio. Smartphones are necessary for many people. But that plan described in the OP is insane.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the penalty for breaking a contract about $200? Well worth it when you’re overpaying that much per month.
BBJ, happily landline free and smartphone enabled since 2003.
Please, it’s a creative expression indicating how much I approve of pitting cell phones.