I forgot to take my mobile phone to work today. I had a slight “Oh, bugger,” moment when I realised it wasn’t in my bag, but my heart didn’t start to beat faster and I didn’t need a brown paper bag to blow into. It crossed my mind that according to the dictates of Sod’s Law, someone would need to get in touch with me, but the odds were in favour of my surviving the day without it.I am always in trouble with people for not carrying my mobile with me every single second of the day. At the weekend and evenings, it’s usually minding its own business on the bedside table. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?” ask mobile-addicted friends, who then berate me for my foolishness: “It might have been important.”
These are people who have the latest, blingy, all singing all-dancing mobile models. My brother even has one with a TV button on it. Mine, on the other hand, is five years old and doesn’t even have a camera. It is geriatric in mobile terms but it does a passable impression of the White Horses theme tune when it rings.
It’s not that long since the mobile phone was a novelty, not a necessity. I do not dispute that it has saved people’s lives when they have been stuck on the sides of snowy mountains or when shipwrecked in stormy seas. If I were planning to climb a mountain or sail the oceans, I’d probably take my phone with me. But in the general scheme of things, I don’t always want to be contacted 24-hours-a-day. Sometimes, it’s better to be elusive.
18 comments:
odds on. it's a nokia 3310 as those of a age, love em. usually with the line "it feels like a phone"
Nah, it's a Nokia 9210! It ain't broke, so why fix it...
oh dear, I experience all of those symptoms on that depression page when I read my blog. I should just stick to this one from now on.
I don't understand this phone mania either. When I was young two paper cups joined by a string would keep us entertained for hours.In fact I only stopped doing that when i could no longer find anyone to speak into the other cup. Now you see people walking down the street, in pairs or a group, all on their phones. Why don't they talk to each other, or go and walk down the street with the people they are phoning?
When you get home you'll just have to stick your head in the microwave on defrost M&M, to make up for not using your phone all day
Get rid is my unsolicited advice, there is nothing like the pure abandonment of walking out without a mobile, no one to hassle, just me and the big wide world.
Friend of mine has a brand new mobile costing millions of euros. Iy is one of the all singing all dancing ones with a name like razor or something like that. It makes toast and expresso coffee too. The other day she had her phone in a breast pocket, bent over the sink whilst doing the washing up and you can guess what happened to the phone. went deep sea diving. My question is? If you can afford that sort of phone why not buy a dishwasher too.
Sorry forgot to say that in this country, Belgium, we have to buy the phone. No such deals like in the UK where the phone costs virtually nothing if you sign up to this or that network.
My theory is: no-one phones me on the landline so why would they want to phone me on a mobile?
I have only owned a mobile since Christmas when Husband insisted on buying it just because I happen to have broken down six times in six weeks. (The car that is.) (I drive an old car.)
The joy of living in cumbria is that most of the time you can't get a signal anyway!
I started with a brick of a Motorola, that broke so I got a Nokia 3310.
When I started going out with Vince we were long distance and pay as you go cost a fortune in calls and texts so I went on a contract and got a 7250i. This went on the internet and took photos.
I got an upgrade, because I could, to a Samsung D600. This takes photos and videos, goes on the internet, plays mp3s and has bluetooth. I don't use bluetooth because I don't know anyone who has it.
I'm thinking of upgrading to a Samsung D900 which is much the same as the D600 but skinnier. I'm not fussed about video calls. I mainly want to upgrade as Vince's phone's battery lasts about 5 minutes and he can't afford a new phone at the moment so he can have my old one. My dad might not like that too much as he usually gets my cast offs! And he's good too and recycles the old phone or gives it to charity so it is recommissioned and given to someone in the third world.
Blimey I don't know what model my phone is,its a grey one.
where I live you have to walk to the top of the hill when the wind's blowing in the right direction to make a phone call, and that's just the land line. If you want to really test how far you can stretch that curly wire, move to the country!
Arthur, I bet people didn't get fried brains from phones on strings ...
Eurodog, your poor friend! Did they then buy a dishwasher?
Grocer, mainly yes, occasionally no.
Liz, yes, I think you need one!
Karen, you are obsessed..
Gill & Rilly, tis very grim up north, I know ...
100% agree that technology should be our slave - not our master.
Those who phone up at the last minute to cancel appointments are a scourge of modern life.
But then we are often to blame - if we are always 'in touch' or respond to texts immediately, then people will come to expect immediate responses.. So leaving the mobile off or behind occasionally has to be a good thing !
liz - where did you get that funky waving Welsh flag ? Splendid !
Hi Anonymous,
I found it on the web, searching for Welsh flag!
Someone else (a Scotsman strangely) asked and I notice he now has it on his site so it must still be there.
I'm not obsessed with phones, merely bored at work and have a good memory for useless information like model numbers of phones and the order in which I owned them.
I don't use my mobile that much anymore, just for keeping in touch with friends via text.
eminem - technology rarely makes life better. I lost count of the arguments my ma and pa had about 'No you were supposed to meet me outside WH Smith at 2 o'clock' variety. I always used to think, with my childish innocence, that if personal communicators were invented, then such arguments would disappear.
I realised the stupidity of this some 10 years ago, when a guy was having an argument with his 'mrs' via a mobile phone, about where they were to meet up, while he was on the top deck of a slow & trundly bus...
Also, if you are meeting someone at 5 for 5.30 they expect you to text updates every 5 minutes about the progress of your journey / likely delays / traffic report / that hideous phrase 'ETA'.
I am not a jumbo flipping jet..if I land 5 minutes early I am not going to crash into an Airbus taxiing to runway 2 past terminal 5...
Although the ability to SEE who is phoning you and hoping to disturb your crossword completion and cuppa is a godsend...
What I hate is that people can't trust their own judgement any more,
they have to 'phone a friend.' I see them all the time in the supermarket 'ooh they haven't got the 250g size only 500. Should I buy that? oh I dunno, should I ring Aunty Mabel and ask her?? blah blah fucking blah'
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