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Life Without A Cellphone

#1
Magical Realist Offline
I guess I'm what you call a critical luddite. I only got a computer like 3 years ago. I don't have an IPOD. And I still don't own a cellphone. I question the latest trend to gadgetize. I critically evaluate the need for having to be so connected to people elsewhere that I am displaced from my immediate enviroment. I'm amused at people's shock when I tell them I don't own a cellphone. It's like I have leprosy or something. What's wrong with you! What if you get lost? What if you need to dial 911? Then I'll just deal with it. Besides, how did the world suddenly become so fraught with danger and uncertainty since the invention of the cellphone? It isn't. Our technology changes our world view. The cellphone generates its own addictive need to always be connected to someone. As if being unconnected is now to be vulnerable, and isolated, and {god forbid!) unprepared. I reject that premise outright. I'm fine with being a discrete sensory-limited primate wandering the vast terrain of the modern world. I'm fine with taking risks for the reward of being free and independent. If people need to get ahold of me, I have a recording machine and email. I'm fine with that. And so is this person:

http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/my-life-wi...f-survival
#2
stryder Offline
Funnily enough I'm not one for using a mobile either. I've only just ran out of credit for a pay as you go mobile that I bought back in 2011 (which I never topped up) The phone for the most part is always off, cluttering my desk. I dislike mobile phones (and phones in general) for a myriad of reasons.

It's mostly due to the absence of a true face to face representation with another person, so you can see if they are paying attention, if they are genuine about something etc. (along with a myriad of concerns ranging from privacy concerns right through to health and safety concerns.)

Admittedly however if people need me they can find me online through one source or another.
#3
Yazata Offline
(Nov 25, 2014 07:45 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I guess I'm what you call a critical luddite.

I am too. I don't usually talk about it online though, since doing so only seems to get me sneered at and insulted.


Quote:I only got a computer like 3 years ago.

I've had several computers. (I've never had a computer that I bought new, though.) What I don't have is high-speed internet at home. Right now, I'm using an old 1990's Toshiba laptop (that I got from a friend for free) running Windows 2000 over a free dial-up connection to write this.

Occasionally websites 'upgrade' and 'improve' to the point they become incompatible with my old browser. People on the internet sneeringly say 'upgrade your browser!' (Except that newer browsers won't work with Windows 2000.) So people on the internet sneeringly say 'upgrade your operating system!'. (Except this old computer doesn't have enough memory to support them.) So people on the internet sneeringly say 'buy a new computer for God's sake!' (Except that new computers don't work with dial-up.) So people on the internet sneeringly say 'Jeez, get high-speed internet like everyone else!' (And pay for it like everyone else.)

So I'm supposed to pay hundreds of dollars for a new computer and who knows how much a month for broadband, just to make a bunch of tech-snobs happy? This machine that I'm pecking on still does everything that I want it to do, and does it very well too. All for free. It doesn't (and never has) cost me anything. I visit the websites that I like and read my many e-books on it, and that's basically all I ever use it for, that and occasional e-mail. In fact, this old computer still has a DVD-drive and I can watch movies on it too. (Newer computers no longer come with a drive.)  

I've never in my life visited Facebook or Twitter (let alone any of the cooler places where the hip kids go these days) and don't anticipate ever doing so. I'm anti-social, I guess, because 'social media' doesn't appeal to me in the least.


Quote:I don't have an IPOD.

Neither do I.


Quote:And I still don't own a cellphone.

I do have a cellphone, but in my defense I point out that it's a prepaid dumb-phone.

Quote:I question the latest trend to gadgetize.

The 'tech' industries are really the only part of the US economy that's growing these days. It's supposed to be the tide that lifts all boats, so you had damn well better keep buying all the gadgets and paying for all the increasingly meaningless 'upgrades'.  

Except that all the tech manufacturing jobs have already been outsourced to Asia, so the people raking in all the money are a smaller and smaller group of richer and richer Mark Zuckerberg types. They may be multi-billionaires but they still need your money, so buy, buy, buy, MR! No excuses! (I don't know who is supposed to keep buying though, given the implosion of the old American middle-class.) 

Quote:I critically evaluate the need for having to be so connected to people elsewhere that I am displaced from my immediate enviroment.

It's kind of amazing how so many people stumble through life or stand there frozen, while staring at a cell-phone. We've all witnessed people in restaurants or public transit who are there, but yet at the same time not-there, having loud animated (and extremely annoying) conversations with... nobody.

In the good old days, people who talked to themselves in public were crazy. Now they are cool urban professionals. So... my suggestion is to just give all the street-crazies little pieces of plastic to hold up their ears while they rant. Problem solved.  


Quote:I'm amused at people's shock when I tell them I don't own a cellphone. It's like I have leprosy or something. What's wrong with you! What if you get lost? What if you need to dial 911? Then I'll just deal with it.

I just saw in the news where New York City is removing the last of its payphones. They used to be everywhere. I'm having trouble remembering when I last saw one around here.
#4
C C Offline
(Nov 25, 2014 09:59 PM)Yazata Wrote: [...] I've had several computers. (I've never had a computer that I bought new, though.) What I don't have is high-speed internet at home. Right now, I'm using an old 1990's Toshiba laptop (that I got from a friend for free) running Windows 2000 over a free dial-up connection to write this.

I'm familiar with "free dial-up connection". It's only because an internet survey company was offering something like that years ago that I ever got hooked-up with / discovered WebTV (they actually sent their members LBBs to use for answering the weekly surveys).

Quote:Occasionally websites 'upgrade' and 'improve' to the point they become incompatible with my old browser. People on the internet sneeringly say 'upgrade your browser!' (Except that newer browsers won't work with Windows 2000.) So people on the internet sneeringly say 'upgrade your operating system!'. (Except this old computer doesn't have enough memory to support them.) So people on the internet sneeringly say 'buy a new computer for God's sake!' (Except that new computers don't work with dial-up.) So people on the internet sneeringly say 'Jeez, get high-speed internet like everyone else!' (And pay for it like everyone else.

Despair not. Dial-up is still possible on newer computers by easily plugging one of these external 56K dial-up modems below into a USB port. I've tested these inexpensive ones on PCs with WinXP and Win7. Insert the software disc that comes with them to automatically install the driver (further instructions should appear on screen, if any are even necessary).

Wintec FileMate 56k USB Modem CX
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Wintec-FileMat...X/15074369

Rosewill RNX-56USB Modem Dial-Up 56Kbps USB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6825164005

Laptops / desktops with Win8 might or might not require a newer driver update which can be downloaded online -- for Rosewill, anyway. It will be small setup package that even a dial-up connection can download in half an hour or less. After downloading the file, open / click it to install the driver [use a USB flashdrive to convey the file to the newer laptop]. Personally, though, I'd prefer a refurbished computer with Win7 for these dial-up modems.

Many refurbished computers from the prior decade will have Win7 installed because that was the last version that they can still use. They're once expensive office desktop / laptop computers that are now priced cheap and usually still have years left on them. I've got one refurbished PC still going strong five years after acquiring it. For mere internet surfing and running causal programs that have nothing to do with resource-hungry gaming, etc, they're still sufficient.
#5
cluelusshusbund Offline
(Nov 25, 2014 07:45 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I'm amused at people's shock when I tell them I don't own a cellphone.
If people need to get ahold of me, I have a recording machine and email. I'm fine with that.

I still have my first computer... this chromebook i got about a year ago... an we have one Dum cell-phone (Trac Fone) that we average usin about 5 minutes a week... an i have a printer that i got about 9 mounthes ago which comes in perty handy sinse our snale-mail (bills) have been swithched over to ebills... an so far ive only used about 1/3 of the original inks supplied wit it.!!!

As far as smart phones go... i will wait until they become a necessity befor i get one.!!!
#6
C C Offline
(Nov 27, 2014 03:37 AM)cluelusshusbund Wrote: I still have my first computer... this chromebook i got about a year ago...

Chromebook is one laptop that I once felt would be either impractical to use with or truly impossible to connect to dial-up. But apparently it's only the former. Not to mention outrageously expensive when comes to a dial-up modem that could use the ethernet port.

http://www.chromebookforum.com/forum/2-c...pport.html

Quote:an we have one Dum cell-phone (Trac Fone) that we average usin about 5 minutes a week...

Oh, stop this. Thanks to this thread, it's a letdown to discover that my household isn't populated by unique prehistoric species after all.




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