I really want an iPhone.
But I don't need an iPhone. Oh, sure, they have their uses, and I'm sure it would be a lot handier to have my calendar, camera, iPod, and phone all in one device, not to mention all the useful apps I could have on it to make my life easier or more enjoyable.
But...
Basically, it would be another toy, another gadget that I'd fiddle with in my downtime.
Here is my current phone...
It is a TracFone I bought for 10 bucks at WalMart, and I pay for my minutes upfront on an as-needed basis.
You can probably imagine that laughs I get from this phone. Especially when people make the connection that I'm the Technology Coordinator at school. "You don't have a smartphone? And you're the tech guy?"
Nope.
I do not have a smartphone. I have a dumbphone.
But here's the thing...this is *really* all the phone I need. Sure, it's inconvenient to text on this rotten thing. (T9Word is akin to the 3rd circle of Hades.) But it does it's job--it allows me to communicate with my wife and few other family and friends with whom I share my number.
The old TracFone is getting pretty weather-beaten. My daughter accidentally closed it in my recliner a couple years ago, leaving deep gouges in the face of it. The screen is getting hard to read from getting scraped and scuffed for several years now. The back cover plate is loose and sometimes falls off, though I have yet to lose the battery when this happens, thankfully.
I'm going to need a new phone sometime. Probably in the next year or so even.
Will I get the iPhone? Much as I'd love to have it...I probably won't. I don't really need it. It's just one more thing that will get in the way of my face-to-face, meaningful communication with others. I'm not going to let Technopoly win. I'm a loving resistance fighter!
Plus...I already have an iPad. Do I really need an iPhone? :-)
The whole time I was reading this I was thinking, "nahhh.. he has an iPad, he doesn't need an iPhone." I am glad that you admitted to it in the end!
ReplyDeleteI also had just a simple phone that wouldn't allow me to send or receive picture messages without charging me for data, so I put a data block on it. But then I stopped getting the pictures of my 3 year old niece in Minnesota showing off her dance recital moves, or my nephew playing ball, or the latest recipe my dad was trying. I felt so unconnected from my family. And I missed that. Yes, it is a gadget that can cause endless time to be lost, but I also think that in some cases, it is worth being a little less resistant.
So, I caved.
If you want to go even more spartan, you can ditch the phone altogether. I don't have one--I never have, and I seem to be doing just fine. I doubt my life would actually improve with the acquisition of a smartphone, although having something to text with would be nice.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Kim. I did make it all the way to 2009 before caving in and getting the phone...for a long time I resisted even having a mobile phone. Pragmatism got the best of me...
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