Rant #1,201: I Have Sold My Soul For a Cell Phone

Well, not really, but ...

Way back in Rant #957, which was dated a year ago today, I brought up the fact that I dislike cell phones intensely.

More to the point, I detest what it does to people, how it takes over their lives.

A year later, my diagnosis is still the same, but I have to tell you, I have come to enjoy my cellphone, because yes, it is so smart.

I have a Samsung model, and although I often don't know where to keep it while I am not using it--in my pocket or, during the work week, in my vinyl lunch bag--it has become a pretty good friend to me.

No, I don't use it while driving, but I do use it when I need it.

Let's be honest about it. Although these are cell phones, and they have phone capability, they are basically pocket computers, and that is what people generally use them for.

Sure, they use them as phones, but from what I have seen--and based on what I personally use my smartphone for--the phone capability is more a feature than the main use for these devices.

I have to tell you that I was turned off at first by this phone, because it simply did not do what it was advertised to do if I used it at home.

I have no idea why to this day, but although it was hooked up to our Internet here--and I also have the faster speeds that my system offers--it used to take a year and a day to hook up to the Internet.

But once I installed the Google Chromecast thingamajig to my television, this thing acted as another hot spot, and the phone has worked correctly since that time.

My wife wanted me to have a phone because of the safety factor, and I appreciate that. However, I have learned to use it for a bit more during the past year.

I go on the Internet on the phone almost daily at least once, because frankly, it is quicker and easier to do it than using my PC. Sure, I type out my entries here on the PC, but if I want to search for something quick, the smartphone is the best option.

I have also used it at work when our Internet has gone down.

I use it to check sports scores, get movies from NetFlix, watch videos on YouTube, and answer my son's questions. For instance, yesterday night, we were watching Monday Night Raw, the WWE flagship show, and he asked me a question about the infamous Chris Benoit, a top wrestler who ended up getting messed up on drugs and in a real tragedy, killed himself and his family.

My son wanted to know when that all happened, and within a matter of seconds, I found out that it happened in June 2007, nearly seven years ago.

It would have taken me much longer to look that up on the PC.

But again, I am not attached to the phone like some people are. If I go a day without using it, that is fine, I didn't use it simply because I didn't need to.

And I do not text and drive. Heck, I barely text--only to my wife and occasionally to my daughter--and it took me a while to learn to do that, but I never use the phone in the car, except if I am parked.

I still don't know how to take photos or put music files onto the phone, but I am sure I will learn how to do that in the future.

But I have to say that I was wrong about the smartphone. I really didn't see the need for it, but in the past year, I have learned to like it, not love it, but like it.

So there, I admit that I was wrong about this little device. I didn't think that I would take to it, but now that I can use it anywhere, it is a nice "toy" to have available to me.

But as a phone, per se, my ratio of phone uses to other uses pretty much leans to the latter. I don't think I have made even 100 phone calls on this thing in the past year.

So yes, it is a smarphone, but really, it is simply a pocket computer, but get people to call these things anything other than phones, and, well, it simply isn't going to happen.

Anybody for rotary dial?