#121 – Scratch
Posted on June 4, 2012 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comic
I didn’t have a cell phone until I was… 29? I can’t imagine what life would have been like if I had texting back when I was a teenager. It would have been a great time waster when I was bored standing around at my minimum wage job. I hear kids refer to texting while in school and my head explodes.
Tags: dinosaurs, phone, texting
I agree.
A 7 year old came in the store in which I work the other day fiddling with his phone. I felt our roles were reversed as I had the 3DS and he had the fancy cell phone.
I see what you did there, Chris, and I approve!
=D
I am probably the last person around who still refuses to carry one of those choke chains aka cell phones. Don’t need and don’t want the damned thing.
Whereas when I moved out of my mother’s house, the first thing I did was to get a $20 cheap cell phone plan. I never have had a land line; I almost never talk on the phone, but if I’m going to have something “just for emergencies” then I might as well have something I can have with me whenever emergencies occur.
Nope, I don’t have a cell phone anymore either. :p
I have a cell phone that doesn’t get reception until I’m at least 25 miles from my house. Between that and never giving out my number… no incoming calls!
I don’t have a phone either. All the kids in my school (teenages) Think I’m weird, because I refuse to have what ever they have (Aka, cell phones, twitter, Facebook, ect.) I don’t see the need of them. Why do you need something to go talk to somebody 10 minuets away?
I’ve had a cell since the turn of this century. I’m on a pay-as-you-go plan, so that’s a good, legit excuse to cut the longer conversations short. I really don’t make a lot of call, texts, picture messages, so I don’t get a whole lot back.
hrm – i have a cell phone, but i don’t call it that. i call it my pocket internet thing. i hear so many people refer to cell phones as ‘digital leashes’ when they hate the things (referring to the constant vulnerability of receiving a call) and when they are proud of their particular network/phone almost invariably talk about how there’s is ‘used for talking, not [some internet thing]’.
so there’s these two polar opposites out there, the most outspoken groups for and against cell phones, that both refer to them with respect almost exclusively to the ‘phone’ part of it.
i hardly talk on mine. and i don’t have a house phone either – i just don’t talk much unless it’s face to face. i can’t. somehow just the other persons digital voice doesn’t entice me to participate in the conversation. even talking to my wife or my brother on the phone is somehow painful to me, and i don’t do it unless i’ve got something important to say/hear.
now a pocket internet thing-a-ma-bob? that’s something worth having. i use mine to switch the thermostat from A/C to HEAT as i leave the office on a cold-snap spring evening. I use mine to listen to music i’ve never known before while i work (legally – and occasionally for buying those songs too). I use mine when travelling to find a restaurant the locals like, or to find local events just as we settle into the hotel room. I use mine as a pocket internet thing-a-ma-bob. and it’s great for that.
it’s not a digital leash. it never rings. i don’t talk on it. when the battery dies no one else in the world thinks “where’d he go”. it’s just another way for me to view the combined knowledge of the people around me, even those i’ll never meet.
and i pay $19/month for that. unlimited everything, so if i ever do talk on it i don’t have to care about the minutes. if someone sends me a text i can reply without thinking “that cost me a quarter”. the internet part alone is worth that to me, and the voice/text bit is just icing on a big fat cake.
just my 2-bits here, since we all seem to be throwing our quarters around…
-bit
I agree with you completely. Talking on the phone is reserved pretty much only for when I’m meeting people (apparently people are no longer able to make concrete plans anymore, it’s always “call you when I get there” now).
But as a means to access Google maps and to get walking and public transport directions? Or as a way to find a restaurant? Or as a dictionary (I live in Japan, and am not exactly fluent)? I wouldn’t want to do without it anymore. I also use it as an e-book reader on those occasions that I’m waiting somewhere but don’t have my Kindle with me.
So basically, I use it more like a PDA that happens to also be able to make calls than an actual phone.
Proud to say I don’t own a cell, and I’m 20! I do think that having one in case of emergencies is a good idea, like car/bike/bicycle accident, but texting and all that jazz for fun? nah.
What does it mean if you have a cell, and the only person who calls it is your wife?
i only have a cell phone for when i get bored and feel like playing games.