A year ago our relationship was limited to outgoing calls and playing Solitaire in medical waiting rooms. I was already an invalid and then VR became one too. Simultaneously the landline was ditched when we had fibre optics installed. My need to communicate with the outside world rose exponentially and the Samsung – opportunely – moved several steps up its career ladder.
I was half aware of what would happen. On the streets and in the supermarkets I’d seen folk of all ages feverishly thumbing away at their mini-keyboards, brows sweating, eyes protruding. What distracted fools, I said. Ineluctably I joined them.
Not that I’m into thumbing, you understand; arthritis saw to that. My problem is propinquity, the need to be near. Dare I go to the loo without that infernal machine? Chat with somebody down the driveway, hands and pockets empty? Pay for petrol, encumbered?
Yes, there’s a facility called Missed Calls. I’m more than grateful. But most of my callers – many of them medical – are represented only by multi-figure sequences which I’m incapable of memorising. Who knows? Call ‘em all back, anyway? One turned out to be a scammist.
Attend a string quartet live? You gotta be joking.
Also I’m getting deafer. At five metres distance it’s a toss-up whether I notice the ringtone.
The smartphone knows the power it wields so there is the carrot as well as the stick. I wasn’t sad to see the landline phone go since the smartphone is ten times clearer. But I could drop the electronic bugger and be cut off from those keeping me alive.
Swings and roundabouts, I suppose. And I’m too old for either.
We still have a landline and use it for all of our phone calls. The younger generation prefers texting or calling us on our iPhone. We're getting used to it. Doctor appointment reminders come by text message these days, so the iPhone is essential. Hope all is well there.
ReplyDeleteNewRobin13: I hung on to the landline longer than I should. Both of us are getting deaf and the mobile has far better sound than the land line. Switching to a fibre optics line (compared with a traditional copper wire connection) means faster speeds and greater reliability. And much cheaper monthly payments.
DeleteI have always relied on my landline. If I am out, then people can leave me a message. I have an ancient, minute mobile phone, always turned off, which I never use for outgoing calls but carry with me when out and about just in case I need to call anyone in an emergency. Photographs are taken care of with a camera (unusual these days).
ReplyDeleteEarly this year I thought maybe I should "get with it" and change my mobile for a "Smart" phone. I rang my service
provider to discuss a change. He had difficulty finding my account and when he did said they had not used that contract for about 10 years - I only pay about £5 per month for the phone, plus outgoing calls, so very minimal cost.
He asked me why I needed to change to a smart phone, with much more expense per month and when I told him my current usage he suggested I keep my old system and keep quiet about the ancient contract. "You don't need a smart phone" he summarised. It was just after Christmas and maybe his Christmas Spirit endured (or he had imbibed well).
So I have followed his advice, with relief. I am not a phone's servant (like you seem to be getting) - it serves me and I never worry about missed calls on the landline. They will either leave a message or ring again , if important. It has a blocking system for nuisance calls, which usually seem to come from somewhere in India - caller having that sort of accent and other phone activity going on in the background.
Avus: How very, very predictable. What’s more these sentiments could easily have been mine about five years ago. Even the language. And you are right; illness has limited your life as it has mine and – I’m assuming – you spend most of your time at home. Also – and I greatly sympathise here – you are now on your own. I suspect that conversation plays a smaller part in your life. You don’t need a smartphone. You may sit in your garden and relish your atavism. You have always believed that the old times were better than the new and you imagine you see confirmation of this every time you wake.
DeleteOne misconception, and that’s expense. Fibre optics gets rid of the line charges that go with owning a landline. My broadband charges are reduced by 30%. The expense attributable to my phone is £10 a month. Not a huge increase given the advantages. With that, among many other things, I get free satnav. Ah yes, you were determined to tell me how useless GPS was but it’s easy to fail to understand new technology if you are keen to do so.
I have used satnav for twenty years. This year – the lurgi willing – my daughter, granddaughter and I will drive from Calais to Montpellier. Easy, you say; it’s all motorway. But in between there’s Paris. There are three routes round Paris and satnav will tell us which is the least crowded. And then dynamically guide us round all the curlicues. Ah, but you prefer paper.
I am deaf, VR is much deafer and her mobility has been affected. She has a very expensive hearing aid but even so… But we both have smartphones. I work in my first-floor study she reads downstairs.. She can phone or email me if she needs something. I regret from the bottom of my heart that you no longer have a need for this facility.
I am upstairs preparing my collection of short stories for publication. My Chambers dicker (infinitely superior to Oxford) happens to be downstairs. I’m faced with a tricky word, perhaps with accents. I don’t need a full definition, so I Google it. Via the phone rather than my PC so I don’t have to disturb the literary task I’m working on.
I order something on line. Just for once the vendor needs to verify my financial probity and sends me a verification code. I can take this on my phone, leaving the details of my transaction as is on the PC.
I imagine you in the early nineteenth century in a house lit by candles. Your neighbour installs a gas supply and recommends it. Ah, you say, but candle-light is so much warmer. And much much cheaper.
I resisted the wider use of smartphones for years (lacking them in France would have been a nightmare), determined not to go with the herd. Then small matters started to percolate. I was lampooning Boris Johnson and needed to know exactly what he’d said about X and when. Hello Google. I am in the supermarket and wonder whether Product X is as good as Product Y; I phone VR. A famous hill-walker’s death is announced on TV, I feel I need to tell my brother about it. I phone him from the couch but he’s out. Yet I know he will check Recent Calls (including Missed Calls) on his phone. Trivial matters.
But now, at the end of our lives, we have close relationships with the medical fraternity. Good communications are essential. They can reach me as I pick the ripest pears at Tesco’s. Think of the irony: bad communications could kill me. Avus, dear Avus, have you ever heard of cutting off your nose to spite your face? And, in any case, what else would you spend your money on?
And, honest, the post-war years were not a Golden Era. What’s more, Golden Years are usually at someone else’s expense. Wilful ignorance can be such a comfort.
Well, thanks for that well reasoned reply RR. I am still perfectly happy with my own set up though. The PC fulfils all my needs and I can always open another window, leaving present work intact, if needed.
DeleteI am afraid I have got a bit behind with digital stuff which has outpaced me and my needs. To think that I actually ran computer information courses for my own Kent County Council staff when they installed them in all offices in the 1980s. Used to go into the office at weekends too to teach myself and get to grips with the new technology.....
Avus: Always being near to the phone is still a problem, as I point out in the post. I still have to fight my earlier pig-headedness and that can be irritating. But ask me if I'd rather be without the smartphone, greedily caressing pennies saved, and you can guess the answer
ReplyDelete