Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Way Too Dependent!

Okay, now I've heard it all.

Stuart (hubby) decided to take the basket of dry washing upstairs and put it away, while I was making dinner. Got as far as the living room door and then came back to sheepishly pick up his mobile phone from his desk. "Just in case I get a call while I'm upstairs..."



Sometimes, I think that thing needs to be glued to his hand.

LabRat (who hates mobiles and refuses to have one and is amazed that people can't seem to use them the way we always used land lines - if you miss a call, they'll call back if it was important! And if you're doing something important when the phone rings, ignore it! <g>)

Well, I keep mine on a belt clip. I almost never get calls, but that way I have it if I need it or if an emergency comes up and someone needs me. (Knowing, BTW, that the odds are good that if someone's calling that number, it's probably an emergency -- or something like -- makes ignoring the ring a tad bit harder for me.)

Mom, OTOH, gets annoyed with people who call her cell first instead of the house line and people who call, expecting her to have it immediately to hand. (She, BTW, gets a lot more calls than I.)

"What, do they think I have it attached at the hip??"

/me looks at belt clip. "I do..."

Paul

One of my friends started flipping out today because her ability to text message seems to be broken. *blink* *crickets* I'll be the first to admit my cell phone comes with me whenever I go out, but seriously. If I've had a long day, quite frankly sometimes the last thing I want to do is interact with the human race, and I turn off my phone. I have this other friend who is absolutely incapable of turning off her phone unless she's at work. One of these days I think I need to hide it from her <g> Talk about co-dependency.

JD
(who currently doesn't care where her phone is after a long day of errands and shovelling flower beds)

My sister is like that -- completely addicted. She spends almost $100 a month on extra text messages and ring tones. Me, I keep it on. Most of the time. I keep it in my purse all the time. I don't ever jump to answer it. Most of the time, I figure I can call whoever it is back at my convenience. Caller ID and voice mail are wonderful things. My mom isn't even 100% sure how to turn her phone on!

I don't own a cell phone... is that weird?

I also don't have an answering machine, or message feature for my phone.

When I am home, I'm online much of the time so no can call me anyway since I'm a dinosaur and only have dial-up.

Tank (who guesses the world has passed him by)

Yesterday my cell phone powered down while I was on the way home. I instantly started thinking that if I became stranded or had an accident no one would ever find me...I'm talking panic attack. Of course I have a plug for the cigarette lighter that could have recharged it - but it was safe at home. *groan*

Of course as soon as I got home I plugged that sucker up.

Laura, I have the Verizon family plan and get unlimited pictures and text messaging for $5.00 a month. Believe me, with two teenagers I think I'm actually making money that way.

Ethnica,

The family plan would be a good plan if my sister and I were both kids. My sister and I are both adults, and I paid for my phone for years. But I told my mom that if she pays for my sister's exorborant spending, she had to pay for my phone, too. (i've never sent a text message or downloaded anything, and I've never gone over my allocated minutes). My mom and I are on a family share plan with Cingular that is actually really cheap. My mom refuses to let my sister into that because she would use all of our minutes. It is also kind of fun to watch my mom try to get the extra $100/month from her -- she doesn't really make any money working her two waitressing jobs and tanning every day and getting her nails done once a week, and her hair hilighted every two weeks.

My dad doesn't have a cell phone, and he freaks out whenever he hears us talking about the bill. I can her him in my head saying, "Why do we pay for Jenny's phone? She is 22 years old!"

I own a cell phone, but rarely use it. Now computers, I couldn't live without.

Well, I think it's very useful to have a cell phone with you when you leave the house. It comes in handy in an emergency. Just last weekend I was miles away from home, on my way to visit friends who have moved to a small village at the border with Germany, when my itty bitty lil' car suddenly started roaring like the Lion King. Oh-oh... my exhaust pipe had snapped and was dancing up and down like a water hose!

So, I don't leave home without it!

Ursie

I own a cell phone, but it's almost always off. I couldn't imagine having it on all the time. When I do have it on, I do jump to answer it, because it's usually my husband, or a friend asking when I'm going to get there, which is the only reason I turned it on in the first place.

I do have a cellphone (my father pays the bill), which I use either for sending text messages to my friends (and receiving text messages from my friends) and for whenever I'm out of the house, without my parents.

I always have it turned on, except when I'm sleeping or at school. When I'm home, it's almost always near me, but it happens to have completely forgotten about it.

I never use it for long phone calls. It makes no sense; the standard phone is so much cheaper!

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Oh, don't get me started. I just can't understand these people who need to be constantly plugged in. Are they so afraid of their own company that they can't bear to be alone for more than 5 minutes at a time?

In particular, I don't understand these people who seem to think that whoever calls on their mobile is more important than whoever is sitting or standing right next to them. Frankly, I find it downright rude if I'm with someone who answers their phone and then starts having a conversation with whoever's at the other end. Texting is almost as bad, especially when you hear that irritating little snigger when they read the reply.

Yes, mobile phones are a wonderful invention and, as Ursie says, they're great in an emergency. However, mine stays switched off 99% of the time. It goes on if I want to make myself available for a specific reason - junior staff manning the office on their own for the day, for example - but otherwise I only use it when things go wrong.

Yvonne

This is the one that always amazes me. When did mobiles overtake plain, common manners? I find it astonishing when someone is having dinner or drinks with friends and their phone goes and they answer it and start having a conversation, ignoring the company they're with. It's just plain rude.

This is what mystifies me about this technology. Why that little box has become so important to people that it eclipses everything else.

LabRat

Cell phones don't make people rude; it's the lack of home training that makes people rude. People who are rude when using a cell phone in public or with friends (?) would be just as rude in a different setting.

What makes me laugh - after a bunch of heavy eye-rolling - is seeing people in deep cell phone conversations while shopping in the grocery store. Personally, I need to concentrate while shopping. But regardless of that (perhaps I'm slower than the average bear), can't those people go for fifteen whole minutes without speaking to someone else? Are they really that freaked out by being alone?

I have a cell phone that I carry when I need to be reached (in case a kid turns up sick at school) or if I need to be able to call out in emergency (driving on a long trip) but for the most part, I don't use it. It's funny, though, that I'll always answer my cell phone but might not answer the land line because I don't get sales calls on the cell, and I've only given my cell number to those who I really do want to talk to. I always tell Ken to call the cell if I don't answer the land line because it could be I'm screening undesirables.

Funny how we all managed to make it to the year 2005 without always being able to be reached 24/7. Personally, I think cell phones are contributing to the destruction of society. Work that used to end at 5 or 6 o'clock can now continue around the clock since everyone can be reached at any time. I can't tell you how many calls my husband has gotten from work while he's on vacation. My attitude - only bother me on vacation if the building has burned down and there is no need for me to return on Monday.

Lynn

Like you, Tank, I don't own a cell phone. And I don't have an answering machine on my home phone or any message features. I did have a car phone once, in case of an emergency. But I never gave anyone the number for the phone.

If I'm not next to a phone, I don't want anyone to be able to contact me (I might be having deep thoughts that they'll interupt ). And if I need to contact someone, I can always find a land line.

I might need to get a cell phone some day for work. But I'm putting it off as long as humanly possible.

Lynn, I love that. Please let me plagarize it.

LOL, Lynn. Funnily enough, that's the only use for a mobile that I actually appreciate. <g> The shopping conversation is probably the most amount of talking Stuart and I do on the thing.

"Hey...just remembered, forgot to add fish cakes to the list..."

"It's me. They've only got green apples, not red. You want those? Or will I not bother?"

And so on. Dreadfully dull, but I do appreciate that when he's left the house and I get that 'duh' moment I have a means to contact him before he comes home without the one ingredient I really needed that week. (Which is, naturally enough, the one I always forget to add to the list :rolleyes: )

Admittedly, it's also handy for finding him when he's out and about and I've had a craving, so I can say, "You want to be a sweetheart and nip into the garage and get me some chocolate on your way home...?"

Hmmmmmmmm. Maybe they're not entirely useless after all.

This, however, is one of my major annoyances with the things. I've lost count of the number of times I hear Stuart on the mobile only two seconds after getting out of bed. Or he's just in the door from work and not even sat down to dinner when it rings and it's some union business needing urgently attended to. Drives me nuts. One day, I think I'm going to hide the thing till at least a couple of hours after he's home. Except, he'd probably have an anxiety attack wondering what happened to it.


LabRat

The problem is the blurring of the lines between business and pleasure. You want to keep your mobile phone switched on out of work hours so that family and friends can reach you, but you don't want work to call you. Well, I think what we need are mobile phones which can support more than one number. You have a business number for work and you have a personal number which you give out to family and friends. You need to be able to 'switch on/off' either number on the same phone.

Of course, what you can do is use the divert feature on your work phone to send work calls to your mobile. You switch the divert on when you want to be available, and you switch it off when you don't want to be available. Then you just tell work to contact you on the work number and never, ever give out your personal mobile number.

Only problem is that perhaps it's not so easy to switch the divert on and off when you haven't got physical access to the handset at work. Hmmm.

As well as destroying society, Lynn, I think they also make it easier (but more expensive!) to be disorganised. For example, you no longer have to look up the train timetable in advance so that you can tell your hubby what time to pick you up from the station, you just hop on a train and then phone him (at a cost) to let him know what time you'll get to the station. You don't have to prepare a shopping list, you just turn up at the shop and phone your other half at home (at a cost) and ask them what you need to buy. And so on.

Ethnica, I take your point about inherent rudeness, but I can't help thinking of the two guys I give a lift home to twice a week. You couldn't meet two more polite, well-mannered people, yet as soon as their mobile phone goes off in the car, they answer it and conduct a conversation with whoever is on the other end. Makes me feel like a bl***y taxi service!

Yvonne

I think that the cell phone morphed from a device of convenience to a symptom of a greater evil that has taken over the American working situation. That is the erosion of 'downtime'. Studies show that the majority of American workers don't take the vacation time they have 'earned', and are working longer hours than ever before since the advent of the 40 hour work week. Funny, corporate America doesn't seem to mind either.

It's gotten to the point where businesses that rely on tourism and vacationers have created commercials pointing out the statistical trends in an effort to 'nudge' people back to taking their time off.

I can see the advantage of having a cell phone for emergency purposes. I have to drive old cars and have broken down in the middle of a highway in the past (luckily a tow truck happened to pass by only a few minutes later and promised to come back for me after he dropped his current fare). I have casually looked into having a cell phone for that reason but can't justify the cost for something I wouldn't use except in emergencies.

Tank (who is also irritated by the limitations that many cell phones seem to have)