Rambling Rhodes

My Own Personal Cell

For many reasons that make sense only to me, I've resisted getting a cell phone ever since the infernal devices started becoming popular. Primarily, I'm not what you'd call a "phone person."

Talking on a phone, for me, is the equivalent of listening to an infant wail into my ear. I don't pay attention very well when talking on a phone, so drawn out stories narrated to me by the person on the other end are typically missed in their entirety. For me, phones are a means by which to attain a pizza delivery, and that's about it.

My resistance to joining the cell phone technology revolution irritated more than just a few people, the privacy-invading micro-managers at my job being top amongst them. "What do you mean, you don't have a home phone number? How are we supposed to contact you outside of work?"

EXACTLY! Being inaccessible outside of work was one of the most alluring aspects of not having a phone. It was empowering, in a way. After 5 p.m., it was like I hit the "off" switch on my work-related
availability.

Unfortunately, there were others who continually cajoled me about getting a cell phone, and these were people I actually cared about, like my girlfriend, and my parents, and my friends, and the good people at Pizza Hut.

So it was, when I received a cell phone over the Christmas holiday from my girlfriend, it was with a resigned acceptance of the inevitable march of time and technology.

Having experimented with my new cell phone now for a couple of weeks, I've come to the conclusion that it's basically a miniature computer, which means all the annoyance and non-intuitive interfaces of a computer has been mini-sized to fit in my pocket. Only, instead of using a mouse and standard keyboard, I'm required to use the phone's keypad to navigate to everything from ring tones to new voicemail tones to tones alerting me to new available tones. I can also
associate a picture with a given phone number, so in addition to seeing a person's name appear when they're calling me, I can also see their face. This is a feature I intend to use sometime shortly AFTER hell freezes over.

It's not that I'm anti-technology; far from it. I LOVE technology. If it weren't for technology and computers, I wouldn't have a job. Rather, my gripe with cell phones is that they feature entirely too many useless features. For example, there's an option to play Solitaire on my cell phone. Honestly, who would want to do such a thing? I mean, if you have the time to play Solitaire, surely you can
play with an actual deck of cards. Or, hey, here's an idea: if you have the time to play Solitaire on your phone, maybe you should CALL someone, a friend or family member, perhaps. Just call and say "Hi."

I'm not saying you have to catch them up on every little thing, but just a quick "hey, howya doin'" so they know you think about them from time to time. You know, rather than playing Solitaire on your cell phone. Just a suggestion.

Not that I'm in any position to offer up any such suggestions, what with my aforementioned disdain for phone conversations, but it just strikes me that cell phones seem to be more about providing a means by which to avoid people rather than engage with them. Even text messages strike me as a conversational life support system. Is it just me, or wouldn't you rather hear somebody laugh at your joke than have "LOL!" flash up on your phone? And, really, when somebody writes "ROTFLMAO," I have sincere doubts they're actually rolling on the floor laughing until their posterior tears asunder from the rest of their body. That's something I have to see, in person.

At any rate, I guess I'm just acclimating to the new reality of being one of the cell phone toting chat bots I used to deride and mock. Now I'm one of them, and it's a hard adjustment to make. I need something that adequately reflects my emotional state regarding this new cell phone world I find myself in.

Maybe if I change my ring tone. . .

Posted by Ryan at January 8, 2007 04:24 PM | TrackBack