I’ve had a phone “adventure” the last few days. The moral of the story? Don’t try to take a picture of your 6 month old and then run off, leaving the phone on the floor. He will army crawl over to it, pick it up, and proceed to saturate the thing with so much drool that it drips….(ok that last part was a bit of an exaggeration). I left because I heard Elias waking up. I went to get him changed and dressed. When I came back a couple minutes later, my phone was in the mouth of my 6 month old…with a bunch of drool. I immediately took it apart and tried to dry everything off….but it started acting up immediately. By the evening…it was dead.
But all this is a preface to my real story.
Today I had to go to the Verizon store to replace my phone. My phone is a regular old joe phone. I talk and text on it. No data. No smart phone. Just a phone. It wasn’t that long ago that everyone had those kinds of phones….but apparently “just a phones” are becoming obsolete. You’d think I was asking the lady for a gramophone or something with the look she gave me.
I realize smartphones are most definitely the way of the future, and resistance is probably futile. But I do not want a smart phone. They are expensive and I don’t need one. When I am home I have a computer. When I am out and about I don’t want to be staring at a phone screen.
It bothers me how much everyone is looking at their phones these days. Not just for safety reasons such as in the car. I see Moms looking at their phones instead of playing with their kids at the park. I see families at restaurants all looking at separate devices instead of interacting with each other. I feel like faster and easier isn’t always better.
I reached the peak of my annoyance with smart phones when my family was camping at the beach last weekend. We were all sitting around the campfire. The smart phones were out. The children were more interested in looking at pictures and videos on the smart phones than anything else. They missed the whole experience in my opinion because their eyes were glued to a screen.
So I got a new phone today, and no…it was not a smart phone. It may be the last time that I am even able to do so (or so says the lady at Verizon). I feel like a dinosaur. But I guess I’m ok with that for now.