Tuesday 28 November 2017

The only reason I'd ever get a cell phone...

I am one of the last remaining people on the planet without a mobile phone. I am of that vanishing breed who carries two quarters with me to use the pay phone in emergencies (and yes, they do still exist). I don't want the bother and expense and annoyance of a phone, I don't want to have to figure out apps and plans, and I don't want to have others be able to track me or my preferences at every moment. Most of all, I don't want my boss to be able to reach me at three in the morning (and she would, too!). So up until now I've avoided the whole thing.

There's only one good thing about mobile phones that might make me change my mind someday. They have incredible cameras on them. There have been many times I've wished I had a camera to hand, and the ability to capture intricate details. Today, coming home, the sky was awash in the most amazing clouds, thin and furrowed like a plowed field, with the bright glow of the sunset just starting, and I wished I could snap a picture of it before it faded. So lovely! My regular digital camera wouldn't have captured it, I know, and it's too bulky to carry around with me. So, yeah, maybe one day I concede I may get a phone. But I'd turn off all the apps and bleeps and connections and just use the camera part.

At some point I won't be able to buy movie tickets or get into the subway station without a phone. The world is just trending that way. That's okay with me. The day I can no longer function without it is the day I resign from everything and retire to a cottage by a lake somewhere, and if advertisers and government officials can't find me, oh well.

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