# Mobile (cell) phones **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 19, 2020, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144 "2020-05-19T21:39:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/41 "2020-05-22T14:09:12Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > However, he did say it. I stand corrected on that. > > [https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/essays-120/](https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/essays-120/) > > It’s from his new collection of essays “In Mid Air” Nice find! Unfortunately, it’s only a book review snipping a random quote from one of the essays so it’s really hard to interpret what he was getting at without context. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/42 "2020-05-22T14:18:18Z")
> [@Sparky812](#): > > Nice find! > > Unfortunately, it’s only a book review snipping a random quote from one of the essays so it’s really hard to interpret what he was getting at without context. I found the actual essay. > **[A Point of View: Why I don't tweet](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26066325)** > > In which Adam Gopnik confesses his reluctance to participate in social media, but denies it has anything to do with technophobia. ---
**Author:** ![Casparlatete](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/casparlatete/32/3377_2.png) [@Casparlatete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casparlatete)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/43 "2020-05-22T14:39:27Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > However, he did say it. I stand corrected on that. > > [https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/essays-120/](https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/essays-120/) > > It’s from his new collection of essays “In Mid Air” Thanks hajario. ---
**Author:** ![Casparlatete](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/casparlatete/32/3377_2.png) [@Casparlatete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casparlatete)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/44 "2020-05-22T14:44:43Z")
From hajirio’s link, _“Everyone insists that the technological transformation of the daily shape of our lives by new gadgets is enormous, while allowing that their emotional effect is more dubious, leaving us with emptier, or at best, unaltered souls. I think the truth is closer to the direct reverse. The emotional effect of new devices is overwhelming - they are like having new pets, new children, trailing with them an overwhelming attachment. But the transformational effect they have on our lives is actually, looked at squarely and without sentiment, quite minimal. After the introduction of a new device, or social media, our lives are exactly where they were before, save for the new thing or service, which we now cannot live without.”_ yeah! ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/45 "2020-05-22T14:52:32Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > I found the actual essay. > > [A Point of View: Why I don't tweet - BBC News](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26066325) Now, that’s what I’m talking about! I figured there had to be more behind it. So here’s the actual quote " Like so much modern media technology, it [his smartphone] creates a dependency without ever actually addressing a need." If you read the preceding paragraphs, he is speaking about his own smart phone usage. ---
**Author:** ![Casparlatete](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/casparlatete/32/3377_2.png) [@Casparlatete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casparlatete)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/46 "2020-05-22T16:40:14Z")
> [@Sparky812](#): > > Now, that’s what I’m talking about! I figured there had to be more behind it. > > So here’s the actual quote " Like so much modern media technology, it [his smartphone] creates a dependency without ever actually addressing a need." > > If you read the preceding paragraphs, he is speaking about his own smart phone usage. I don’t know how you figure that out; Gopnick is obviously generalising - not writing in the first person about his possessions. Look, I (& he too) aren’t Luddites, there is no call for closing down the internet, what is being questioned is why the need for everyone to be available to everyone else 24/7. I’m pleased you are more in touch with your parents than you once were, but do you really need to do it from a number 47 bus? An American university prof. I read, discovered that it isn’t unusual for some students to send as many as 200 text messages a day & there’s constant psychological pressure all the time to reply. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/47 "2020-05-22T17:08:11Z")
> [@Casparlatete](#): > > Have they been overall, an advantage or or a disadvantage to the well-being of humanity? Like technology, it’s just a tool. I could use one to call the police to stop a crime in progress. I could use one to harass people by following them around and filming them. In general I’d say it’s a positive. You call people and not locations now. Of course, your boss knows that, if they’re the sort of boss who wants to call you at home. This isn’t a harmful tool in itself. Even if people are getting addicted (“nomophobia”) that’s really an issue with app design (and capitalism, because you get more money out of addicts). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/48 "2020-05-22T17:54:04Z")
Of course smart phones provide an overwhelming advantage. Are they without problems? Of course not. I guess my main complaint with smart phones and digital technology in general is that it tends to make all relationships and interactions “transactional”. Think of comparing marrying your high school sweetheart and staying together for the next 40 years vs using Tinder whenever you feel like a date. Or a lifelong career at a company that continues to grow and nurture your career vs having to work a long series of “gigs”. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/49 "2020-05-22T18:06:25Z")
I’m speaking as a person who has owned a cell phone, who has never owned a smartphone, and who currently owns neither. Cell phones were an obviously useful invention with some direct benefits and some downsides. They added the ability to communicate from nearly everywhere, which is supremely beneficial in an emergency scenario. They also added the ability to be distracted while driving and killed people. Plus/minus. Still, probably a net benefit to humanity. Smartphones of course are a completely different animal. They added…some benefits over traditional cell phones, I gather. The ability to google anything anywhere, with the effect of eroding human memory. The ability to play simplistic games anywhere, providing another way to deter boredom while funneling massive amounts of money to companies. The ability to send text messages more readily, facilitating the rise of social media, facilitating the downfall of traditional media and the rise of disinformation, leading to Trump and a worldwide rise of fascism. Yeah, I’d say that smartphones are clearly a scourge upon humanity and a significant contributor to literally everything bad that’s happening in the world (through their effect on disinformation in politics). On the other hand you can now order a pizza while out shopping and pick it up on the way back. Plus/minus, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/50 "2020-05-22T18:11:30Z")
> [@Casparlatete](#): > > I’m pleased you are more in touch with your parents than you once were, but do you really need to do it from a number 47 bus? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Pretty handy then that it’s entirely in my control, no? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/51 "2020-05-22T18:13:59Z")
Makes me think of an old Punch cartoon, c. 1970, where a guy is wearing a t-shirt that reads “You’re destroying the art of conversation.” ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/52 "2020-05-22T18:48:26Z")
> [@Casparlatete](#): > > I don’t know how you figure that out; Gopnick is obviously generalising - not writing in the first person about his possessions. ??? Did you even read the essay, especially the paragraph that contains your cite? It is entirely in the first person! > [@](#): > > And, while I merely like my computer, I love my smartphone. I clutch my phone tight to myself, I hold it in my hand like a talisman - a feeling of panic overcomes me when in a strange city I find I have mislaid it, or that I forgot to bring its charger. But though it has altered the shape of my days and hours, has it really altered the life those days add up to and achieve? No - less than a decade ago I had no smartphone at all, and nothing was significantly different in my life… except for the possession of my phone. I never felt particularly remote from my family. I seemed to get all the email I need. The distribution not just of happiness and sadness in my life, but of all the smaller domestic emotions that small domestic devices are presumably there to assist, existed in exactly the same amounts. I talked to my wife as often, I worried about my kids as much, I was in the same amount of contact, or not, with my friends. It is not merely that I got along fine before I had it, but that I got along in exactly the same way - in precisely the same spirit in days that were shaped along exactly the same lines - save for the fact that I was not, then, consulting my smartphone every five minutes. Like so much modern media technology, it creates a dependency without ever actually addressing a need. Here’s a better quote from that essay. > [@](#): > > To describe my relationship to my laptop I need the language of affection - I need it, I depend on it, I’m attached to it, I would be bereft without it - more than the language of real necessity. I couldn’t do my work without it? Well, I could. I did. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/53 "2020-05-22T19:04:07Z")
For me, the internet was the major game changer (and very much a net positive). The smartphone was just an extension of that. It replaced the aftermarket GPS in my car and the regular cell phone. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/54 "2020-05-22T20:30:11Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > For me, the internet was the major game changer (and very much a net positive). Pun intended? ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/55 "2020-05-22T21:22:21Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I’m speaking as a person who has owned a cell phone, who has never owned a smartphone, and who currently owns neither. I hate smartphones and I still carry one, just because Google Maps is incredibly useful. I tried buying a GPS device because I get lost easily, and buying a compass and a mapbook wasn’t really working. The device didn’t work in a bus because the bus’s roof was blocking the view to the satellites. This was **specifically designed to work in cars** (and not just convertibles). Then I noticed my sister using Google Maps, offline, while driving. A smartphone had the same cost if you get a pre-paid account. I avoid most apps. I have less than six “optional” apps. No games, and hardly anyone ever calls me on that number. It’s basically for emergencies, not getting lost, and I use One Note as a note-taking app. I see no reason to use most forms of social media, and my Facebook usage is basically MSN messenger (which I can only use at home anyway, because I don’t have data). But yes, I see many people using the smartphone like it’s a computer, only one you have available _all the time_. (And less functional. But they seem not to notice.) ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/56 "2020-05-22T21:49:51Z")
I’ve on very rare occasions thought about getting a smartphone, specifically for emergencies and so I could order pizza while shopping. However aside from the cost, it would almost certainly spend all its time run out of power, left at home, and lost, all simultaneously. I’m talented that way. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/57 "2020-05-22T22:43:56Z")
**begbert2** : FWIW, they’re actually decent on battery duration. But, yeah, losing one is an expensive proposition, and leaving 'em behind does somewhat inhibit their utility (I’ve done both!) ---
**Author:** ![Casparlatete](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/casparlatete/32/3377_2.png) [@Casparlatete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casparlatete)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/58 "2020-05-23T07:23:47Z")
Sparky812; A fair cop, I hadn’t read it through. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/59 "2020-05-29T21:26:24Z")
Could I live my life without my smartphone? - Sure, it would be easy. But I wouldn’t be near as productive. As a result of that increased productivity, do I also use my smartphone as a timewaster? - Sure, but that’s my choice. I do not ever let it interfere with my relationship with my wife and children. When they need my attention, it gets put away. Do I use my smartphone while I am riding the train, bus, or flying on a plane? - Sure, I’d rather fill my time with being more productive or just satisfying my curiosity, than chatting with some stranger I have no interest in getting to know. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144/60 "2020-05-29T21:51:08Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Do I use my smartphone while I am riding the train, bus, or flying on a plane? > > - Sure, I’d rather fill my time with being more productive or just satisfying my curiosity, than chatting with some stranger I have no interest in getting to know. I would never even think of getting on a train, bus, or plane without bringing something to read; and smartphones haven’t changed that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cell-phones/854144.md?page=4)