My new year's resolution is to totally stop using a cellular phone.
Period. Part of the reason is because of text messages. I find them to be quite rude. If someone wants to talk to me, let them have the decency to call me, and we will talk. My Son in law and daughter, and grand daughter no longer talk to each other. they send numerous text messages every day to each other. I consider this the epitome of stupidity. My wife has always used and carried our cell phone. I wear it on my belt when we go out, but if it rings or does that sickening "messaging" chime, I hand it to her. I consider text-ing a stupid fad. It is getting drivers killed (can you even believe anyone is so stupid to try and text a message and drive at the same time?)
I have instructed everyone I know to email me or phone me. No text messages. It pisses off my daughter that I won't pay attention to a text. HA HA HA. So call me on the phone darling! And if I ever catch you text and driving, I will ground you even if you are 39, married, and two kids!!
Cell phones are NON-ERE. They are a stupid fad. I expect them to soon go out with the equally stupid Homer Simpson beards that men wear!!
That is my 2011 rant. I hope you enjoyed it!
Text Messaging
Interesting rant:
While I don't text people myself, and generally agree with you, I wouldn't consider texting just a fad. Practically everyone I know who is under 30 makes extensive use of text messaging, many of them sending and receiving 1,000+ texts a month (no joke).
I think there's a way you can call your carrier and have texting turned off for your plan, but I've never done this myself. I wish it was just an option on your phone that you can turn off...Kind of like an opt out option. I think more people would opt out of receiving text messages if this were the case.
While I don't text people myself, and generally agree with you, I wouldn't consider texting just a fad. Practically everyone I know who is under 30 makes extensive use of text messaging, many of them sending and receiving 1,000+ texts a month (no joke).
I think there's a way you can call your carrier and have texting turned off for your plan, but I've never done this myself. I wish it was just an option on your phone that you can turn off...Kind of like an opt out option. I think more people would opt out of receiving text messages if this were the case.
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DividendGuy
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- Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2010 9:58 pm
I currently have an iPhone and the cheapest plan available. It may not be well known, but you can actually take text messaging functions completely off your plan...that way you can't receive or send texts. That's what I've done. I have the cheapest plan possible, and while it still comes in at just about $60.00 after taxes per month I haven't found a real good alternative solution. I thought about MetroPCS and their $40/mo unlimited everything plan but I do like my iPhone. I know it's not ERE, though. Maybe I should just get an extremely cheap prepaid cell phone and keep my butt off of it.
I do understand your rant on texts though. I despise them and that's why I completely disabled them on my account. I won't have to pay 10 cents when my sister wants to tell me what she's watching on TV.
I do understand your rant on texts though. I despise them and that's why I completely disabled them on my account. I won't have to pay 10 cents when my sister wants to tell me what she's watching on TV.
@DividendGuy:
My brother has an unlocked/hacked iphone. He put a prepaid t-mobile sim card in it for emergencies, the kind that lasts a year and you only pay ten dollars or so for it to last another year (gold rewards I think)
He generally just uses the phone as a vifi voip phone using skype. His total phone bill is about $8 dollars /month or so, yet he has a high end phone with most of the functionality that everyone else has. Just without the phone bill that normally goes along with it.
My brother has an unlocked/hacked iphone. He put a prepaid t-mobile sim card in it for emergencies, the kind that lasts a year and you only pay ten dollars or so for it to last another year (gold rewards I think)
He generally just uses the phone as a vifi voip phone using skype. His total phone bill is about $8 dollars /month or so, yet he has a high end phone with most of the functionality that everyone else has. Just without the phone bill that normally goes along with it.
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DividendGuy
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- Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2010 9:58 pm
@DividendGuy
You can get a regular phone number for skype - you just have to pay a small monthly fee, less than 10 dollars. Then you just pay a very low rate for the minutes you use.
Line2 is another good option if you need all the nice features - for 10 dollars a month you get a nice wifi number with unlimited calling and texting to US numbers and very low rates to elsewhere.
I've seriously considered both of these options myself, but I'm too cheap to even buy a used smartphone.
You can get a regular phone number for skype - you just have to pay a small monthly fee, less than 10 dollars. Then you just pay a very low rate for the minutes you use.
Line2 is another good option if you need all the nice features - for 10 dollars a month you get a nice wifi number with unlimited calling and texting to US numbers and very low rates to elsewhere.
I've seriously considered both of these options myself, but I'm too cheap to even buy a used smartphone.
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AlexOliver
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2010 7:25 pm
Most of my calls are "Where are you? Oh, I see you--" click. Everything else is texting.
Obviously I'm a teenager. (A girl one, no less! *gasp*!)
But I send less than 100 texts a month. Use less than 30 minutes of call time a month.
I find calling rude. It's like, Really. You want me to answer this RIGHT NOW or I can't find out what you want to tell me?!
Voicemail use is nearly nonexistent with anyone I know. Besides my mom.
Phone calls are for emergencies and times when you don't have the time to write a text and wait for a response, like when you're meeting up with the person in question.
I've never emailed someone my age, except when we need to share files for school or something.
Texting and Facebook are the main forms of communication among people under 30.
Obviously I'm a teenager. (A girl one, no less! *gasp*!)
But I send less than 100 texts a month. Use less than 30 minutes of call time a month.
I find calling rude. It's like, Really. You want me to answer this RIGHT NOW or I can't find out what you want to tell me?!
Voicemail use is nearly nonexistent with anyone I know. Besides my mom.
Phone calls are for emergencies and times when you don't have the time to write a text and wait for a response, like when you're meeting up with the person in question.
I've never emailed someone my age, except when we need to share files for school or something.
Texting and Facebook are the main forms of communication among people under 30.
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George the original one
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- Location: Wettest corner of Orygun
I've been using internet email since about 1985 and it's amazing the number of people you meet who struggle with the basics of it... at least every one I know finally has an address!
Facebook is evil and I don't go near it if I can help it. I don't bloody care who you know that I know.
Most cell phone use is stupid. People wandering around the mall checking prices during the Christmas shopping frenzy. Or going out for an evening with friends and then being interrupted by a call.
Texting is... tolerable, but I don't carry a cellphone, so please send me a legible email instead.
Facebook is evil and I don't go near it if I can help it. I don't bloody care who you know that I know.
Most cell phone use is stupid. People wandering around the mall checking prices during the Christmas shopping frenzy. Or going out for an evening with friends and then being interrupted by a call.
Texting is... tolerable, but I don't carry a cellphone, so please send me a legible email instead.
I have cell phone for emergencies - if you want to talk with me call my home phone and leave a message. If I'm home and hear you I will answer the phone. If you can't leave a message, then it wasn't important, so why should I have answered in the first place? (I have this argument with one person that won't leave me voice messages)
As for texting, it takes up a tiny part of the wireless bandwidth, yet its charged for like its gold. The price elasticity of the users of texting (mostly teens) is so low, providers can charge almost any price without losing customers. Effectively, texters subsidize the cell phone rates, allowing us types to have extremely cheap service.
Oh, and to the original post, yes, texting is stupid. If its not important enough for an email, its a waste of time.
As for texting, it takes up a tiny part of the wireless bandwidth, yet its charged for like its gold. The price elasticity of the users of texting (mostly teens) is so low, providers can charge almost any price without losing customers. Effectively, texters subsidize the cell phone rates, allowing us types to have extremely cheap service.
Oh, and to the original post, yes, texting is stupid. If its not important enough for an email, its a waste of time.-
AlexOliver
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2010 7:25 pm
It's not a question of importantness (is that a word?), but formality. Emails and calls are really formal, and therefore are the last resort. Texting is less formal. Leaving a voicemail is *extremely* formal, I wouldn't even know what to say.
I didn't say Facebook was good, just that it's a main form of communication. I don't have one, and therefore have a really quiet social life.
I didn't say Facebook was good, just that it's a main form of communication. I don't have one, and therefore have a really quiet social life.
HSpencer, since you didn't ask 
If you think a cell phone and text messaging is annoying in your personal life, then you have never had one for work. Gah, managers give your numbers to machines (!) that text you to know they haven't made a widget in 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes . . . not to mention the constant communication with other workers during the 24/7 work cycle.
End of rant 2011.
If you think a cell phone and text messaging is annoying in your personal life, then you have never had one for work. Gah, managers give your numbers to machines (!) that text you to know they haven't made a widget in 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes . . . not to mention the constant communication with other workers during the 24/7 work cycle.
End of rant 2011.
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AnneBentham
- Posts: 53
- Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 4:15 am
I'm not a big fan of cell phones in general. I don't see why everyone nowadays has to be available for (work related) calls all day. About the only times my phone is turned on is when i'm travelling or meeting people. Another reason i dislike cellphones is because i feel cellphones replace real contact and interaction with people(just like facebook). Of course cell phones can be very useful for certain professions, but i don't see why everyone should have one turned on all day.
For ERE i would definitely get a prepaid phone. It saves a lot of money if you don't use your phone all day.
For ERE i would definitely get a prepaid phone. It saves a lot of money if you don't use your phone all day.
there are very few things that can be critiqued free of context and cell-phones are certainly not one of them. cell-phones are 90% of the time, for 90% of the people, a waster-of- time..nothing else ( but agin , it's not like all people feel the need to do something 'real' with their time anyway..so in a way it helps people cope with boredom-wake up people...most people (in the mainstream atleast) are bored and clueless most of the time. ...cellphones help them cope.then there's facebook)
Forget mainstream..Cellphones can be a wonderful device even to the most rational amonst us: in emergencies. I vividly recollect the pre-cellphone days and how it sucked in emergency-like situations.
Also,you can (apparently)find the way when lost, browse the net ( maybe place that order with the brokerage that you oh-so-forgot about the previous day), call up DW to remind to pick up somethign that you wanted picked up from where you know DW's at, but you forgot to ask earlier.) You can set reminders and forget all about something important that you'd have had to kinda chant every few minutes in the pre cell era, so as to not forget.
It's an amazing invention...no doubt, notwithstanding the fact that for 90% of the people 90% of the time.....
BTW...I own one..which is always switched off, except when I want to make calls- important calls only. And then I switch it off again. This is brought up in comnversations once a we atleast...I just shrug and continue keeping it switched off. For a while, I had a missed-call service enabled, to help me know who'd called when the phone was off-which is most of the time. I'd switch it on once a day or so..and then I'd call if there were like 3-5 missed calls from the same number and if the number was familiar. these days...i don't bother with even that..i request friends etc to mesaage me ( there, that's one reasonably good use for messages..used here more like e-mail. well, they can mail me too, but i check personal mails even more infrequently) if there's anything important ( serves the same purpose as the miised-call-alert service at no extra charge)
i haven't broswed the internet once from a phone, have sent maybe 50 messages in my lifetime (all typed in in non-abbreviated form, and with great effort- i don't have a qwerty phone and i'm the worst i know at texting)
I haven't used GPS or any of then other even apparently useful services once, either. So, I guess I (don't) use the cell-phone just like an ERE, but share none of the resentlent that I sense here.
while we're at it, I'm not on any social networking site, used to use personal-email (for 5 years..when in college etc), then didn't, for the next 5 years ( when employed...working on computers of all things) Now I have an id again, for getting bank acc updates etc. No..I'm not a neo-luddite ...I just don't feel the need to do all those 'networking' things is all...
Forget mainstream..Cellphones can be a wonderful device even to the most rational amonst us: in emergencies. I vividly recollect the pre-cellphone days and how it sucked in emergency-like situations.
Also,you can (apparently)find the way when lost, browse the net ( maybe place that order with the brokerage that you oh-so-forgot about the previous day), call up DW to remind to pick up somethign that you wanted picked up from where you know DW's at, but you forgot to ask earlier.) You can set reminders and forget all about something important that you'd have had to kinda chant every few minutes in the pre cell era, so as to not forget.
It's an amazing invention...no doubt, notwithstanding the fact that for 90% of the people 90% of the time.....
BTW...I own one..which is always switched off, except when I want to make calls- important calls only. And then I switch it off again. This is brought up in comnversations once a we atleast...I just shrug and continue keeping it switched off. For a while, I had a missed-call service enabled, to help me know who'd called when the phone was off-which is most of the time. I'd switch it on once a day or so..and then I'd call if there were like 3-5 missed calls from the same number and if the number was familiar. these days...i don't bother with even that..i request friends etc to mesaage me ( there, that's one reasonably good use for messages..used here more like e-mail. well, they can mail me too, but i check personal mails even more infrequently) if there's anything important ( serves the same purpose as the miised-call-alert service at no extra charge)
i haven't broswed the internet once from a phone, have sent maybe 50 messages in my lifetime (all typed in in non-abbreviated form, and with great effort- i don't have a qwerty phone and i'm the worst i know at texting)
I haven't used GPS or any of then other even apparently useful services once, either. So, I guess I (don't) use the cell-phone just like an ERE, but share none of the resentlent that I sense here.
while we're at it, I'm not on any social networking site, used to use personal-email (for 5 years..when in college etc), then didn't, for the next 5 years ( when employed...working on computers of all things) Now I have an id again, for getting bank acc updates etc. No..I'm not a neo-luddite ...I just don't feel the need to do all those 'networking' things is all...
..but nothing suggests the vanity of the human race itself better than the different kinds of iphone apps etc in existence, and the idea of people lining up at night..outside...in the cold...biding time...fists clenched from the ordeal...homeless outside a soup-kitchen you ask? no...assholes outside an apple store..
Personally, I find a cellphone to be extremely valuable and text messaging to be the most convenient method of communication. That being said, I don't text message to have a casual conversation but to ask a question. There is no reason for most communication to be synchronous, taking up both of our time to immediately transfer information which could probably wait until you have a free moment.
If it want forbmy cellphone, I'd never keep up with this forum. End of rant 2011
I've always been appalled at the price of text messaging (especially compared to voice minutes which use far more data but usually cost less). However, the network effects eventually got to me, as it became the de facto method of communication with my peers. It is by no means a "stupid fad," however, as there are significant advantages to the medium and I expect prices to continue falling. At this stage, text messaging is not conceptually different from a high priority email for which your phone is programmed to use a different alert. It is a great middle ground between the attention demands of a phone call (high) and an email (low). Saying that texts are annoying reminds me of the people who say they don't want a cell phone because it makes them always reachable -- it doesn't, because you can turn it off or ignore it. I suspect that this mode of thought comes from older people who are ingrained with the belief that it is rude to ignore communication temporarily. Among younger people, however, it is common to respond to a text message the next day (or sooner depending on the context or course).
I doubt that the concept of a text message will go away any time soon, although itay be implemented differently (it has already undergone several changes), because it fills a clear need in the spectrum of communication. It has already saved us from a future where everyone on the bus is holding a loud phone conversation.
I've always been appalled at the price of text messaging (especially compared to voice minutes which use far more data but usually cost less). However, the network effects eventually got to me, as it became the de facto method of communication with my peers. It is by no means a "stupid fad," however, as there are significant advantages to the medium and I expect prices to continue falling. At this stage, text messaging is not conceptually different from a high priority email for which your phone is programmed to use a different alert. It is a great middle ground between the attention demands of a phone call (high) and an email (low). Saying that texts are annoying reminds me of the people who say they don't want a cell phone because it makes them always reachable -- it doesn't, because you can turn it off or ignore it. I suspect that this mode of thought comes from older people who are ingrained with the belief that it is rude to ignore communication temporarily. Among younger people, however, it is common to respond to a text message the next day (or sooner depending on the context or course).
I doubt that the concept of a text message will go away any time soon, although itay be implemented differently (it has already undergone several changes), because it fills a clear need in the spectrum of communication. It has already saved us from a future where everyone on the bus is holding a loud phone conversation.
I used to have a mobile on contract, this was 'pre-enlightenment'. The phone was a freebie when I opened a bank account, at the time I genuinely thought this was a fantastic offer. I can offer no defence other than plead stupidity.
After a few years I really didn't use it so I switched to a prepaid phone, which I barely used either. One day when I actually wanted to make a call I discovered that the prepaid credit had expired despite not being used. Since then (6+ years) I have not bothered with a mobile & have had no occasion to need one.
This should be my choice.
What irks me is how it is assumed & expected that I should have a mobile phone. I had a job interview recently where they asked for my mobile number, when I replied I didn't have a mobile all three of the panel looked up from their forms, there was an awkward pause & then we carried on (still got the job though woo!). A while ago my girlfriend & I came across two stray dogs in a forest, we took them to a nearby house & asked if we could use his phone to call the number on the collars, the occupier looked at us suspiciously & asked why we didn't use a mobile.
I've come across online forms where a mobile number is a required field, I used to hold an account with a bank that wanted a mobile number as an 'extra security measure' which left me with an extra nag screen every time I logged into my account.
I don't understand how some people are so dependent on their mobile phone. I used to regularly argue with a friend of mine who was also incredulous when she learned that I didn't have a mobile, "What if you have an emergency? Like, what if you broke down?" to which I replied, I'd get out & walk. I think part of the increase on mobile dependency is a shift in perception as to what constitutes an emergency.
One last point, I recall someone (but can't remember who) saying once that a ringing phone is the equivalent of a person walking up to you and chanting, "Talk to me now" until you do so.
After a few years I really didn't use it so I switched to a prepaid phone, which I barely used either. One day when I actually wanted to make a call I discovered that the prepaid credit had expired despite not being used. Since then (6+ years) I have not bothered with a mobile & have had no occasion to need one.
This should be my choice.
What irks me is how it is assumed & expected that I should have a mobile phone. I had a job interview recently where they asked for my mobile number, when I replied I didn't have a mobile all three of the panel looked up from their forms, there was an awkward pause & then we carried on (still got the job though woo!). A while ago my girlfriend & I came across two stray dogs in a forest, we took them to a nearby house & asked if we could use his phone to call the number on the collars, the occupier looked at us suspiciously & asked why we didn't use a mobile.
I've come across online forms where a mobile number is a required field, I used to hold an account with a bank that wanted a mobile number as an 'extra security measure' which left me with an extra nag screen every time I logged into my account.
I don't understand how some people are so dependent on their mobile phone. I used to regularly argue with a friend of mine who was also incredulous when she learned that I didn't have a mobile, "What if you have an emergency? Like, what if you broke down?" to which I replied, I'd get out & walk. I think part of the increase on mobile dependency is a shift in perception as to what constitutes an emergency.
One last point, I recall someone (but can't remember who) saying once that a ringing phone is the equivalent of a person walking up to you and chanting, "Talk to me now" until you do so.
orinoco, I think you could replace "mobile" with "phone" very effectively in your post. i.e. "I've come across online forms where a phone number is a required field." Cell phone penetration is 91%, whereas landline penetration is projected at 74%. While I don't think a mobile phone number should be required for anything, it's now a reasonable expectation that you have one.