So, how DID you survive without a cellphone

the phone lives in the house never goes out it goes on silent mode and in the drawer in the kitchen after 5pm and all day sunday office hours only .

it is a tool that i have added to my tool box and this 13 year old phone is still working well does not spy on me and i got a new battery months ago that should last another 5 years .

people laugh at it now and say it looks like a house phone but that is what it is now i paid £ 30 for it in 2000 and want my moneys worth .

i repair phones for a hobby and do ok over the course of a year fixing smart phones that dummies sat on but hey i miss mirrors and the flags for signalling

and for anyone that thinks that motorolla invented phones .
.

or google nathan stubblefield and read what was it he plugged into the earth to phone about even albert pike had a phone nothing new under the sun they say

I still do not use a cell phone or smart phone. I have been pestered by a few people to get one but for those asking, I decided I like it that they can't call , very easily. They act like a land line is an ancient relic and don't use it. That's fine with me. I do not like using it anyway.

I plan things ahead of time. I had planned on getting one for a small cost but after reading about phone issues and rising monthly charges, I never got around to feeling like I had to have it right away.

What would really make me switch radically is an inexpensive service to replace my unlimited dsl internet at home and landline service with one plan that doesn't cost anymore than what I'm spending now. I also am interested in a tablet and smart phone that can use java and flash.

I have been using a tablet though. I can live with the $25 a month fee. I do not carry it around with me every where.

I stopped using my (android) cell-phone in 2011; my primary means of communication is email. This works for me on a professional level, but it has really destroyed my sex life.

My sister gave me a phone earlier in the year insisting I stop being incommunicado, I rarely carry it with me and seldom answer it (I only answer if its a number I recognise and I actually want to talk to them). It said something like 43 missed calls last time I looked.

To stop the ringtone annoying me, instead of putting it on silent, I keep it in the freezer.

Basically there is nobody I want to talk to so why have a phone?

ETA: Prior to my decission to ditch the phone, I was a person who wold spent about 200 hours a month on the phone, and got into a panic when I didnt have it on me. I think I have improved my wellbeing by ditching the phone

My understanding and memory is that there were pay phones on every corner in existence. Small towns twenty miles from the nearest city had at least one or two.

Today, the only ones I've ever seen have been in libraries.

This is actually one of the things that has de-unified our culture and nation. We used to have to plan, and socialize better. Like on page1 with the story about the Mormon's stopping to help the mom&kid with broken car.

People used to help each other out more. We were more of a community. This is rare these days. With the so-called independence cell phones have given us, comes the isolation of everyone assuming "they'll call someone" when they whizz past at 80mph.

The de-unification has also made us easier to bully and control and you can see the result of that everyday in the police and gov't.

reply to post by mlifeoutthere


As someone like you and I who grew up without cell phones, technology has a way of making us lazy and at the same time occupy more and more of our life. Remember the TV remote control? Before, we never thought about getting our butts off the sofa and change the channel on the TV. (Our parents used us as a remote control before those gadgets made the scene, lol). Now nobody thinks about shutting off or changing channels using the controls on the TV! How often do we get upset if we can't find that damn remote to change the channel or to shut it off, lol. Yep, sure made an entire population addicted to using that gadget.

The only difference is, cell phones have adapted themselves for so many uses, it has become another part of the human anatomy. If you notice on the street, older generations like ours, don't use it as much as the younger generations. Mostly, it's because we don't know how to use all its capabilities and wizardry.

I have a pay as you go cell phone, and it would be like winning the lottery if I ever used more than 200 minutes in a month, lol. If I leave the house without my cell, I don't panic, I just don't care (except my kids, or my wife when they need to get a hold of me, lol).

It does amaze me how the young generation who grew up with cell phones, can't walk down the street without staring down or texting while being oblivious to the world around them. I can see a generation of neck problems in the near future, lol.

I don't like answering the phone at home, especially when my 87 year-old father in-law calls 5 times a day just to talk about nothing. Which is exactly what these young kids do 24/7. (I do like the fact that my land phone tells me when I receive calls from him or from those dreaded telemarketers, than I conveniently don't answer the phone).

I do think the cell phone addicts do need to step back and realize there is a time to use it and a time when it's just plain dangerous, rude and disrespectful to use it. For example, when they're driving, crossing a street, walking near a cliff, while sitting along the 3rd or 1st base line at a baseball game, in the classroom, in a theater, church, dining out, during presentations, when dealing with customers such as, retail workers and other service industries. Cell phone etiquette just doesn't exist.

I don't see cell phones going away until they implant communication chips into our brains, than we'll all be walking around like zombies, lol.

reply to post by WeRpeons


I refuse to have a cell phone - I don't answer my land line - those people who know me, know to leave a message on the answering machine - and I'll call them back when I have time.

I HATE CELLPHONES!!!!!!

reply to post by kloejen


Lol, thanks for sharing that photo. I think I'll print that out and post it in my classroom.

I remember the good old days before mobile phones!

Nobody was "connected" 24x7, there wasn't a need. People in transit, driving, sitting at airports, on buses or trains would be contactable when they got home or to the office. Despite this lack of connectivity, the world still turned, business boomed and deals were done, during business hours and nobody felt that they needed to br contactable all day, every day 365 days a year.

Yes, I have a smartphone, supplied by my company for business purposes, but I don't feel the need to be constantly emailing, rexring or calling people all hours of the day. Outside of business hours it is still switched on, in case I need to respond to an emergency situation, but I don't use it for anything else.
It makes me chuckle every time I fly somewhere, to see everyone scrambling for their mobiles phones as soon as the plane has landed and before we even get to the gate, in an almost panicked state as they have been disconnected from the world for several hours. I even saw a guy threatened with removal by security by a stewardess once for repeatedly ignoring her request to first board the plane, then turn off his phone for take off. Seriously, are some people now so arrogant that they feel they MUST be online and the world will implode if they are not?
When travelling, I simply inform my work team that I am going to be offline, then turn the phone off and it doesn't go on again until I reach my destination, whether that's an office, hotel or other remote location. I simply cannot fathom why anyone would want to be spending all day staring at a tiny screen, but maybe that's another conspiracy by the opthalmology industry?

I don't have a cell phone now. I can't stand them. I remember life before everyone had a cell phone glued to their heads and it was wonderful. You could go to dinner, movies, shopping, etc without seeing people constantly plugged in. You could go places and not have to listen to someone on their phone. You could communicate with others face to face like normal people do.

There's a restaurant in town that has a sign up "The waitress will take your order when you are OFF your phone". The movie theater has a sign up that says "no phone zone" as you enter into the theater, and if you are caught on your phone talking, you're asked to leave.

Life before cell phones meant, waiting to talk to people when you got home. It meant unplugging for awhile and emptying out your brain and doing other stuff for awhile. I can't believe how attached people are to their phones. I can't stand it, and I'm a young person lol

I don't have a cellphone, don't want one, (not on my pension anyway) so, is there a help site I can go to to help me with whatever it is that is wrong with me?

it is abused, now a days.

i want to slap the phones out of some hands, everyday.

it's a great tool, not a lifeline to reality.

my bud starts looking up stuff when we are in the movies, my wife plays with the dam thing, when she is driving, i yell at her too.

whether it's games or facebook or ATS, it's rude, in the presence of others.

no one is alone with their thoughts, anymore.

reply to post by mlifeoutthere


I am in my 60's and have no problem with our addiction or whatever it is to technology. I am kind of addicted to sewer systems and indoor plumbing too.

My house phone is disconnected completely as I don't want to pay the charges our local multi billion company, Sky Charge for it.
Mobile phone is only on when I want to make a call or are out in the car and don't use it till I stop.
Off when I get back in and if anyone wants me they can always text and I get it next time I switch it back on.
Bought my ailing old father in law a cheap mobile many years ago so that we can contact him once a day to see he is ok as he's no house phone either.

Spookybelle
We survived but not nearly as efficiently as we do today. They are a wonderful piece of technology.

You may miss the days of getting lost and looking for a phone booth, hoping the phone book isn't ripped out, just so you can find an address, but I prefer to get that information almost instantly.

Being able to call my husband if the car breaks down while keeping the doors locked is far safer than having to walk around the city looking for a place to call.

The severe weather alerts and Amber Alerts have saved lives.

Yes you can live without it, but not as well.

Looking for a phone booth? I was a child of the 90's, all one had to do back then was ask if they could make a call from a business, and toss them the pay phone fee for it. I never had anyone refuse that. If I happened across a phone booth, sure, I used them, but I also knew stores were just as willing. To bookend that, most businesses such as gas stations & grocery stores also carried these strange things called "road maps". And they weren't that expensive, either!

As to the SWA, that was never an issue. To this day, I can still step outside and tell if the weather is turning & how badly just by cloud types, temperature, humidity, and wind. I can also literally smell if rain is in the near hours. It really does have a scent, and it's hard to miss. If you pay attention to your environment, you don't need any weather alerts to give you a heads up, and with practice, you'll learn to tune in to weather changes before any alert goes out. This is a lost art that people really do need to relearn, we can't rely on technology for something as easy as weather. Humans have been around for how long? And it only took us how many years to lose our finesse with this?

As for Amber Alerts, the idiot box & radio worked just fine for those back in the day. There might not be a lot of people still listening to live radio, but plenty still have TVs, we could hack it this way still.

Do I have a cell phone? Yes, actually. Not for the "convenience" factor, though. It's a verbal communication device that we need to use once in a while, that's all. It costs us less annually than a landline would, and we have a pre-paid cell, not a contract cell. This particular phone has been in operation in our house for a decade (very ancient Nokia brick) and since it's T-Mobile, the pre-pay minutes do not expire for a year. We add about $100 in minutes to it annually, which works out to about $8.33 per month for it. If we even use it. So far this year, it's only had $50 worth of minutes added to it. You just can't beat phone service at that cost.

Could we live without it? Absolutely. There are times it's been turned off for months. No, not the service. The battery died, and I forgot about it. One time, it was off so long on top of the fridge that it was forgotten about by all of us, and was covered in a layer of dust by the time anyone stumbled on it. We survived just fine without it in use. I'd wager that more people, after withdrawals are done with, could say they could live better without a cell than with one. There's just something about doing something either yourself, or more simply, that strokes the self-confidence better than tech does.

My hubby actually bought me a cell phone when we started dating as a gift, all my friends and even family members allready had a cell phone but i didn´t feel that i really needed it. Well i got to used to it eventually. Im still not addicted to it i just make those calls what are necessary to make.

Last few years cell phone has proven its importance for me, when kid started school ( he is type 1 diabetic ) we bought a phone for him so we could call him and his whereabouts. We want our kid to have some freedom as a child but as a parent you are always worried when he is not in sight and the fact that he doesn´t feel his lows worries us. When he goes out or visits his friends he has a backpack with food which fixes hypoglychemia and we have to call him to check his bloodglucose as he tends to forget that when he is having fun. And honestly i believe cell phone has saved his life several times. He is insulin sensitive and kids do not plan what they are about to do and how much physical exercise they have...

Now we also have a small app in our phones which locates family members.. specially kid, so if something goes wrong and he is not answering his phone we can find him easily and in time.

Thank you for cellphones !!!

We don't have cell phones. We did - but with a family of six and 3 of us wanting cell phones - the bill had HAD to be cut. Whether we wanted the cell phones or not. It was either the internet had to go or the cell phones.

So the vote went for the internet. They can still use their phones for mini tablets now though and access things like Facebook and their Google play games. We bundled a land line with the internet.

We survived. Actually, my teenager is beginning to learn how disconnected with others some are who can't lift their eyes from the phone long enough to have a meaningful real eye to eye Conversations with others are. She still bugs for a cell phone though. Guess what I tell her - go get a job and pay for it yourself.

It's not necessity. It's a luxury.

CdT

reply to post by Spookybelle

Oh please, I never said it was a need, I said it made life easier. You may think its a leash but most of us find it a convenience.

People think it is a convenience the reason why is because they are lazy and dumb. They too lazy to learn how to read a map. They need someone to tell them the weather because they never learn how to look at nature it will tell you what the weather will be like. It's getting to where people go from womb to tomb without learning how to think or do things for themselves and devices like cellphones help make this so. Not to mention people with cell phones are annoying as hell.

I dont own one no one in my house has one and i make it just fine everyday. What are they good for...ohh thats
right you can use them to run people over while driving.