Cellphone/smartphone a nuisance?

Hi,

To me cellphone and smartphone are a real nuisance, everywhere you see people sticked to their phones, texting or calling all the time. don't get me wrong I am not an old man overcome by new techonlogical advanced I am rather young as an adult and seriously I don't see any serious positive impact in the use of cellphone/smartphone. I've once considered owning one but was disgusted by the cell phone providers with their 3 years contract and around 50$ a month fee. Of course you can avoid the contract and paying the phone cash but you're still stuck with a horrible monthly fee. What a waste of money. I will not be a slave.

Of course having a cellphone has is usefulness, if you're stuck somewhere you can contact someone or having a smartphone you can access internet everywhere they're pocket computers but really weighting in the for and against and the benefit of owning one I cannot conclude it's necessery. When I heard things like ''How do you live without a cellphone!!'' I feel that in lots of cases, people have created their need.

My inner circle of friends knows how to contact me, my laptop is always open for emails and skype and my landline always available and if I am not there they leave a message and I call back shortly.

I can access internet evryhwere with my laptop without the need of paying 50$ a month with a 3 years contract. Money that I spend in other things of more relevance, like gym sessions which is way more healthy.

What are your thoughts on this?

cell phones have definatly changed the way we live, but I see for the better.

What more does a person need?

2 years for about $150. isn't bad, imo.           (Tracfone)

I ditched my cell phone a few years ago.  Good riddance.  People greatly over estimate their own need for a cell phone.

However, it would be nice if there were more pay phones around, they are becoming fewer and fewer, another victim of The War on Drugs.

Suvel:

 It has indeed changed the way some people live but I fail to see how is it for the better. How can poeple stitched to their phone all day long, texting, phoning or updtating their facebook status be a ''better'' thing? I am exaperated when I go to a restaurant for instance and I see people texting all the while they eat. I don't see anything intellectual in this activity. If those people were reading books instead, I might agree with you. Also, it is now common to see 10 years old children with cellphones and they get the same habbits as their parent very quickly. I am not mentionning the health hazard regular cellphone use may cause in the long term. No study has convincingly ruled out that possibility.

Joseph-S:

Haha well those old fashioned phone are unbreakable, so why not?

As for Tracfone, it isn't available outside the United States, so not much use for me. I know that the cell phone compagnies here in Canada offers prepaid services.

That's a good alternative for those who are under financial restraint and cannot afford their horrible montlhy fees or simply if you want to have a free will over your cellphone use. You can basically throw it away and it is all over. But even then there are some tricky restriction, for instance you have 2 or 3 months to use your prepaid time or you lose it as well as your cellphone number. You have to activate it again. So, they kind of push you to use it in a regular basis and recharge your prepaid time, otherwise you'll have to change numbers a couple of time a year.. Also, you do not save anything in the long-run, I owned a prepaid cellphone a few years ago and it was kind of 15cent by text message and 25cent a minute. You do not want to talk for hours on it, usually hang up after 2 or 3 minutes..

It is definitly a good option if you really wish and need to own a cellphone worry free wihout a monthly bill. As far as I am concerned, I don't see much use in it for me, though if one day I get stuck somewhere without my laptop or a phone boot nearby I might say otherwise. I just don't see what difference it would make right now.

huriko, it's only a nuisance if you let it bother you. Sure, I am sometimes put off by what I see as a lack of real interaction due to eyes glued to cellphones. But, you know what? I just laugh it off.

There may be some that may view your post as somewhat hypocritical, since you mention your laptop is always open for emails, and both technologies are relatively recent.

I don't think you can convincingly argue against the value of the internet and having it in your pocket all the time. There is great value in these phones.

Now of course whether it's going to be productive depends on what you make of it. I agree that updating the Facebook status whereever you go is useless, and yes, this technology is probably abused a lot in this way (and I've already had an acquaintance complain about this). But how about using it to read news as you're driving to work with public transportation for example? I'm sure you'll brush this off as useless or not applicable for you to argue your case, but it is one of those many little things that I wouldn't want to do without and that save me time too.

And then there's this huge number of applications - there's a lot of garbage among those but many are pretty useful too. I'm assuming you're a chess player, so you could use the chess.com app to play chess when you're not at home. This isn't essential and you can do without it (your profile reveals that you don't play here with your account anyway) but many people find it useful, and it adds a bit of convenience to their lives. But the web alone is enough to justify such a phone anyway.

There's nothing truly essential in it for most people (we had to do without until a couple of years ago after all), but it adds so much convenience that having one simply is desirable.

I do not argue the value of the Internet, I use it right now with great pleasure. The fact that you can have it in your pocket is interesting but not an obligation. Personally I wouldn't pay 50$ a month for the Internet connection comes with a cellphone/smartphone plan necesserely. Of course, you can use WiFi, but so you can reasonably with an Ipod who do not require contracts, monthly bills and are much more a discretion and less of a distraction.

Any one will find their own uses to it, no doubt smartphones are pocket computers which makes it very attractive. Personnaly I read news at home and in public tranportation a read a book or a magazine. Everyone has their own habbits but many center their lives around it and cannot put their phone down. That's a reality and that's what you saw in public. Though now I do not give heed to it unless I am in the compagny of friends with this habbit and as I said above, I fail to see how it is for the better. What do you learn in texting, phoning, facebooking all the time? Except if you use it to play chess (most people obviously dont') There is no intellectual improvements coming from this.

AlCzervik:

Don't get me wrong, when I say ''My laptop is always open for email'' it doesn't mean that I use it all the time. People can communicate with me this way and when I do a laptop session, I check that out. Aftert that I am free of the computer and live my day. I don't carry my laptop everywhere and everytime. Perhaps the fact that it cannot be carried in a pocket and cannot be use for texting, phoning every ten minutes makes it less a nuisance to my eyes.