Phoney baloney
I use my cellphone for everything, it seems, except talking. I text; I play games; I take pictures. I used to use it for listening to music, but I couldn’t justify paying an exorbitant price for a cellphone with enough memory to hold the 4,000-plus tunes I have on my old iPod.
I can’t remember the last time I called someone. I know that seems impersonal. But you need to know that long before cellphones appeared, I didn’t use landline phones much, either. My family wasn’t chatty. We didn’t call “just to say, ‘Hi!'” Four years ago I became the last living member of my parents’ immediate family. But even before that happened, we just didn’t call each other. None of us – including Mom and Dad – seemed uncomfortable with that arrangement. It must be an inherited trait: My son will text me to tell me he’s going to call because “I don’t want you to think someone has died.”
So, despite Alexander Graham Bell’s great invention, I keep my distance. I’ve assigned different ringtones to family and close friends because I don’t want to talk to someone I don’t know. If an unknown caller doesn’t leave a voicemail, I will not call back. I figure that if a call is important enough to make, it’s important enough to leave a voicemail. Certainly I don’t miss being asked every day who I plan to vote for in upcoming elections.
I have a smartphone only because carrier support for “dumbphones” can be spotty to nonexistent. But if I was forced to go back to having the folding, decidedly limited Motorola Razr I loved 15 years ago, I wouldn’t mind. And I’m not alone in thinking that having a smartphone isn’t necessary: Recent news reports indicate that millennials and members of Gen Z are forsaking feature-laden smartphones for their low-tech cousins.
Dumbphones are not internet capable, don’t have GPS functions and, as anyone who has used one to text knows, have keypads that make messaging excruciatingly difficult. And these detriments are exactly what younger phone users hope will help them cut down on the amount of time they spend staring at a smartphone. I like this trend.
Likewise, I am a strong proponent of banning students from having cellphones in school. Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Oklahoma have instituted statewide bans on cellphone use by students, and California is said to be considering the same. Of course in today’s world, some parents have threatened to sue if schools ban cellphones, calling being distracted 24/7 “a God-given, constitutional right.” Well, if that were true, Moses would have called in an airstrike on Pharaoh’s army while crossing the Red Sea. I don’t recall seeing that happen in Cecil B. DeMille’s documentary film, “The Ten Commandments.”
Anyone older than 30 knows that in an emergency, parents always have the option of calling the school, showing up there or sending a designated person to retrieve a child. I know this can be hard in the age when almost every family has two working parents, but it is possible. Kids – and adults, for that matter – can become addicted to phones far too easily. Why not start weaning kids early in the hope that someday we may be able to get through breakfast without playing Candy Crush on a smartphone?
If you agree, text me. I won’t answer a call.