Phones and Me (A Phone Rant)

 Phones and Me (A Phone Rant)

With the exception of my teenage years I have never been a fan of phones whether it's the telephone or those time-stealing “smart” cell phones. As a teen I did talk on the phone a bit with my friends, mostly with my girlfriend Maryann. This was in the 60's and most of my friends' families had what was called a “party-line”. For those a bit younger than me, a “party-line” is where multiple households all share the same phone line. If you want to make a call you first need to pick up the phone and check if anyone is using it from one of the other homes on your line. If you get the dial tone you can then make a call. If you end up talking for awhile with someone who had one of these you would hear clicks every now and then of others checking to see if the phone line is busy. If you stayed on too long you might get someone breaking into your conversation requesting you finish up your call. If your friend shared a line with someone who used the phone a lot and was insensitive to the needs of others, you know like a teenager, you may find it difficult to even get through to them. Busy signals were a very common experience.

My family had a private line. Not because we were better off than my friends, but because my Father worked for NY Telephone, part of AT&T. Employees received a free private line with free local phone service. It also came with free upgrades on phones and a long distance allowance. That worked out for my parents because both their parents, while living less than 30 miles/minutes away, were far enough away so that calls to them were in the long distance category. Still my parents were not big phone users. My Mom was not fond of using the phone and was even a bit intimidated in regards to answering and speaking on it. My Dad believed that the phone was to be used to achieve some purpose, to pass on important information. It was not something to chit-chat, gossip, or socialize on. So while talking to our friends was no cost to us and there was no one else on our line waiting to make a call, my father was pretty strict when it came to telephone usage.  Back then you didn't own your phone. It was owned by the phone company and you had to turn them in if you discontinued service. As a result they were made to be basically indestructible. You could pick them up and throw them against a cement wall and they would look and work as if nothing had happened. Now that we own our phones there is no longer an incentive to make them tough enough to survive physical abuse.

When I went off to college, I did not phone home much. There were no phones in the dorm rooms but there were some pay phones off the lobby on the main floor we could use to make calls. I probably called about once a month unless of course I needed something. The understanding/motto in my family was “no news is good news”. I attended college in Indiana but my high school girlfriend attended a college in New York. I called her infrequently because it was costly to do so (long distance). I assume we had a phone when I was married to my first wife, Donna, but I do not remember it or using it. We must have had one though because I called Donna when I was stationed overseas. Through the 70's and into the 80's I had a phone but I often did not answer it. I tended to only answer it if I was expecting a call. This was before everyone, or at least me, had an answering machine. I remember friends would tell me they had tried to get a hold of me the previous day or night and I would think “Well, I was home.” Then I would remember oh yeah, but I mostly ignore the phone.

The thing is, I don't care for talking on phone. It feels awkward to me and I get bored easily when I am doing it. If someone calls me I want them to tell me whatever it is they feel they need to tell me and then end the call. (Sounds a bit like my Father.) If I end up on the phone with someone for more than a few minutes I start looking for something to do while they're talking, like look at the paper or a magazine. I struggle to have much of a conversation on the phone. There is something about not being able to see who I am talking with. It causes me to quickly lose interest. I feel disconnected. I've been told I'm abrupt, sound disinterested, and act like I'm being bothered on the phone. Well I guess that's because I guess I am. It's the old “it's not you, it's me”. This has at times caused me problems with various friends, particularly girlfriends.

Phones particularly bug me when I am at some sort of store waiting for service or help. After waiting in line for my turn and finally getting to the counter, the phone rings and the service person picks it up and then starts helping the person calling. “Hey! I just took the time to come to your place of business, I have been waiting for service and now some joker calls from who knows where and automatically gets priority service.” It's like they walked in and just cut right in at the front of the line that I had to stand in. I also don't like it when I'm in a conversation in someone's office and their phone rings and they pick it up and they don't tell the person they are busy. My father once told me that when someone did that to him he would just get up and leave the office. He said if what they were talking to you about was important they would come find you. I started adopting that policy after giving them a chance to tell the caller they were busy.

Then came the 90's. Cell phones started showing up. First it seemed to be something higher level supervisors and managers would often have. Something to make them feel they were very important, at least that was the way it seemed to me. By the later 90's it seemed lots of people were getting personal cell phones. By the early 2000's they were everywhere. At work my supervisors and managers were even suggesting I get one. Sheesh! Me? I just nodded but made sure not to follow up. I actually managed to avoid carrying a phone my entire career (I retired in 2010). I ended up getting my first cell phone, a hand-me-down from my wife Kris, in 2009 but I never told my work people. I got it so that Kris would be able to get a hold if she needed to once I was retired. I still have one today and I do use it, but I don't carry it around with me much of the time. I try to remember to take it when I go somewhere in the car. I generally power it down when I do so it won't distract or bug me but if something happens I can use it to call somebody. Remember public pay phones? You know, those giant phones that used to be housed in a small cubical called a telephone booth. They have gone the way of the Dodo bird. Of course if you are young you probably only know them from the movies, if that. I still kinda like that idea of keeping phones in a separate little cubicle away from the rest of us...

Now everyone has a cell phone and they are all “smart” phones. Everyone spends an enormous amount of time looking at their phones and constantly checking them. These days it seems like people come with a phone, like they come with ears. When I am out socially with friends, or for that matter anyone, there is always someone looking at their phone. If someone asks a question and nobody has the answer, out come the phones even if topic is completely inconsequential. Heck, people even check their phones just to verify what their friend just said is true. When I walk down the street people, especially young people have their heads down looking at the darn phone, even if they are with others. Heck, I often have to stop or move over so they don't walk into me. Does the outside world even exist if no one is looking at it (Schrodinger's Cat)?

My First (hand-me-down) Cell Phone

As much as I find the usage of smart phones annoying, I have come to appreciate a few things about them. The camera is handy. Google maps for directions is good. Best of all is I can text people so I don't have to talk with them on the phone. I suppose I am sounding like my parents when they talked about the evils of the television set when I was growing up. OK, it's official. I've become a cranky old man. Still my advice to the rest of you is if you can't un-bundle from your phones at least start taking regular phone vacations. I'm convinced it's an addiction! Teenage/young adult anxiety and depression are at an all time high and I suspect the combo of smart phones along and social media have much to do with it. So, get control while you can. Human to human contact is really not all that bad.

I suppose it won't be long before cell phones are “old school”. Probably the next gen won't need a phone because everyone will be getting something like chip implants allowing us to communicate to everyone else remotely non-stop, not to mention getting little reminders about those shoes you happened to glance at on Amazon earlier in the day... Beam me up, Scotty!