Can you exist without your cell phone

[musical marv]

Simple question. Can you live without your cell phone?

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Yes I have a small flip phone and I make about 1 text a month. Computers are much cooler.

 

[Karadjgne]

Yes. And No.
Back a few years ago, I personally didn't have a cell phone, although just about everybody, including my daughters did. I simply didn't have a need for one. If I needed a phone, I just used a payphone or landline at the house. Nowadays finding a payphone, nevermind one that actually works, is harder than finding a needle in a haystack.
So, could I live without one? Sure. Would it turn out to be a royal P. I. T. A, oh hell yes lol. So, No.

Btw, this was answered via cell phone as my pc is currently down for RMA repair on the mobo. Hah lol.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Exist / Live yes. Could my clients live w/o my cell phone .... likely but life would be more difficult

 

[USAFRet]

Easily. Up until last month, I had a seldom used old, PAYG flipphone. Was out of battery more often than not.
Last month, I splurged and bought a LG Tracfone because I was going out of town, and SWMBO insisted. $100 in minutes will easily last me for a year.

Why? I can't have it at work, and don't need it at home. If it were to die, my life would not be diminished one iota.

 

[Saga Lout]

I could live for a while, Marv but when the money ran out and my business shut down, I might get a bit hungry. I can't remember an occasion when I took a personal call on it from anyone other than my lady.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I went the other way ...... have no home phone and saving money. Every call made on 5 cell phones from my home is free and no long distance charges. Data usage is also way way down.

I'm out in the boonies so we needed a cell booster. Use a MicoCell which picks up our cell phones and sends them out over the internet "a la MagicJack". Since I often work from home, not only has my home phone bill disappeared but my business phone bill has dropped from $300+ territory to < $300.

-

 

[Saga Lout]

I have a feeling price structuring here in Britain is a little different from your neck of the woods, Jack.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Im sure it is but they can't charge me for what I don't use...... my calls are not going out over the cell network. The MicroCell is a mini receiving tower. It takes all 5 cell phones over my own private GSM network and send them out / in over the internet. As soon as I leave the driveway, I get dropped by my own "private cell tower" and picked up by the GSM network .... these calls are covered by my plan ..... for the 5 phones, I am down from about 800 minutes a month to about 300.

http://www.att.com/media/en_US/swf/3Gmicrocell/assets/ATT3GMicroCell_UserManual.pdf

But regardless of what they charge, they can't charge me for what I don't use. This is basically the same thing as the MagicJack except I'm using 5 cell phones and 5 numbers for $20 a month ($240 a year) instead of $60 per line per year for MagicJack

http://www.magicjack.com/index.html

Side benefit ..... with three boys 18 - 24 I don't have to answer a constant barrage of girls calling asking if my sons are home

And they don't get calls at 3 am telling them that a plant lost power.

I tried looking them up for GB but no luck.... they work on GSM so shud work on your side of the pond

 

[musical marv]

I have a feeling price structuring here in Britain is a little different from your neck of the woods, Jack.

Cell phones are very cheap here in the states.Your country I know it is much more costly and also in Australia.

 

[Karadjgne]

The Samsung Galaxy S5 I'm currently typing on cost over $700. I'd say some cell phones are cheap, but mostly it's a game. What you get for 'free' is guaranteed to be paid for with the service plan, taxes, wierd off the wall charges etc. I pay $160 a month for 5 lines, 3 iPhone and 2 s5's, with 10Gb of data, unlimited everything else + international. But I also have no contract.

 

[USAFRet]

The Samsung Galaxy S5 I'm currently typing on cost over $700. I'd say some cell phones are cheap, but mostly it's a game. What you get for 'free' is guaranteed to be paid for with the service plan, taxes, wierd off the wall charges etc. I pay $160 a month for 5 lines, 3 iPhone and 2 s5's, with 10Gb of data, unlimited everything else + international. But I also have no contract.

And personal usage varies. A LOT.
I pay $100/year for cell phone ($40 phone), $4/month for house landline, and ~$45/month unlimited 50/50mbps internet at the house..

 

[gropouce]

Interesting.

I'm not a permanent user of my cell phone, but It's freaking practice. (is "practice" the good word, here? i mean "it's useful")
And it's pretty cheap in here.

30€/month for the internet 1Gbps (38$)
With this provider, i can choose:
- one free subscription to a cell phone with 2h call per month and free sms. Cheap data with 3G/4G, but free via wifi
- 15€ per month for a completely unlimited use of a cell phone. (19$)

Basically, it costs me 45€/month for internet, television, telephone and cell phone with no limit of use and no contract. (58$)
It used to be a lot more expensive until Xavier Niel decided to change a few things.=)

(edit: adding prices in USD)

 

[Deleted member 217926]

I just got my first smartphone literally 3 weeks ago. Went from a Samsung slider to a Samsung Galaxy Ace Style. It's a fairly new lower end phone but as a first time smartphone owner I can't imagine what the more expensive phones have that mine doesn't. Well I can really, a larger screen, better camera, 4G LTE, faster processor, more RAM etc. But I'm honestly amazed at how badass this thing is. I paid $150 for the phone but it came with a $30 Walmart gift card so it was really only $120. I dropped ATT and went with Straight Talk ( this phone uses Verizon's towers ) and it's $45 a month for unlimited minutes, texting and data with no contract.

I really didn't even need a smartphone but I hate ATT and hated being in a contract even more and this didn't end up too much more expensive than what I had. Once I finally got it my main thought is what took me so long! Stupid thing is addictive as hell. It's almost worth it just to have a halfway decent camera. The camera on my last phone was terrible.

Could I live without a cell phone in general? No. In fact my first cell phone came in a bag and I have had one since. But I could live without a smartphone.

 

[summer31]

I can. But, I will feel empty when no cell phone is around me.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The thing about smartphones is that they are less phone and more "entertainment" devices. I have been in a Starbucks 3 times in my life and one thing I noticed is peeps who don't know each other oft wind up sharing table because of the very limited seating. Once visit was a business meeting where the the table next to us had a guy and a girl sitting together each quietly busy, one with a phone and other a phablet. We were there about an hour and I didn't hear either of them speak. Just as we finished and were leacing, they both got up, left together and got in their car .

Drives me nutz when my sons text me from their rooms .... I don't answer, other than to tell them to get off their arse and have a human to human conversation.

I still miss my Treo 650 which I used for 7 years, nothing's touched it yet. I took of e-mail as accomplishing actual work on a phone is too unproductive, that's what lappies are for. I use it for phone, GPS Navigation, calendar, checking flight, train and ferry schedules, weather, and little else.

 

[musical marv]

The thing about smartphones is that they are less phone and more "entertainment" devices. I have been in a Starbucks 3 times in my life and one thing I noticed is peeps who don't know each other oft wind up sharing table because of the very limited seating. Once visit was a business meeting where the the table next to us had a guy and a girl sitting together each quietly busy, one with a phone and other a phablet. We were there about an hour and I didn't hear either of them speak. Just as we finished and were leacing, they both got up, left together and got in their car .

Drives me nutz when my sons text me from their rooms .... I don't answer, other than to tell them to get off their arse and have a human to human conversation.

I still miss my Treo 650 which I used for 7 years, nothing's touched it yet. I took of e-mail as accomplishing actual work on a phone is too unproductive, that's what lappies are for. I use it for phone, GPS Navigation, calendar, checking flight, train and ferry schedules, weather, and little else.

We are losing communication between human beings today account of these dam cell phones I see it every day and our intelligence is shrinking to.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Affects mindsets on how we go about every day life .... instead of reading full page editorials that go into depth about the advantages / disadvantages on any issue, most look / listn at 15 second clips / sound bites to base their opinions on complicated issues.

 

[gropouce]

We are losing communication between human beings today account of these dam cell phones I see it every day and our intelligence is shrinking to.

i'm not really sure about that, Marv.
You say we are loosing communication between human beings, boday's technologies allow me to have a conversation with you.
Concerning our intelligence, i admit, something is going on. I prefer to believe we live a time when the intelligence is in transition.
Today it is no longer necessary to retain a quantity of things (in the workplace, for example), to the extent that information is available at will with an internet connection.
I do not think the advent of the internet will be a drag on our evolution. It is true that some people become lazy, but then to say that we are in the process of intellectual regression, I do not agree.
I think we are developing a new way of operating. This can be ultimately positive or negative, but it is far too early to tell.

 

[Saga Lout]

Whichever way technology takes us, I fear we are very vulnerable to be so dependent on devices powered by electricity.

 

[musical marv]

We are losing communication between human beings today account of these dam cell phones I see it every day and our intelligence is shrinking to.

i'm not really sure about that, Marv.
You say we are loosing communication between human beings, boday's technologies allow me to have a conversation with you.
Concerning our intelligence, i admit, something is going on. I prefer to believe we live a time when the intelligence is in transition.
Today it is no longer necessary to retain a quantity of things (in the workplace, for example), to the extent that information is available at will with an internet connection.
I do not think the advent of the internet will be a drag on our evolution. It is true that some people become lazy, but then to say that we are in the process of intellectual regression, I do not agree.
I think we are developing a new way of operating. This can be ultimately positive or negative, but it is far too early to tell.

Perhaps you some points there I did not think about.I am really referring to the younger people today not the seniors or age brackets that lie around 30-50 years old.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Whichever way technology takes us, I fear we are very vulnerable to be so dependent on devices powered by electricity.

I agree with you there. Wouldn't take much more than an extremely powerful solar flare much less something man made like an EMP attack to send us back to pre industrial revolution days. Very few people left have the skills to even grow their own food much less hunt and fish for it. Imagine every microprocessor and anything with a circuit destroyed. No cars built after 1971 would ever run again ( electronic ignition ) and while some older farm equipment might work there would be no way to get fuel to it. Hundreds of millions if not billions would die. Those that would do best are the countries that lack any sort of modern technology.

Just read this very interesting article on how the age of the hydrocarbon ( read electricity ) has initiated a dramatic increase in human evolution.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/humans-could-middle-huge-evolutionary-221152424.html

 

[USAFRet]

The recent novel One Second After goes in to a bit of detail with what would happen after such an EMP strike. A lot of things people don't realize.

Medications? 30 days.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

The recent novel One Second After goes in to a bit of detail with what would happen after such an EMP strike. A lot of things people don't realize.

Medications? 30 days.

Read it The kid with type 1 diabetes and the fate of the family dogs were real tearjerkers.


Edit: Lucifer's Hammer is another good "what if" book from the mid 70's. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle co-authored it. The hammer being a comet that hits us. One of my favorite books.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

According to Wikipedia on EMPs it says:

The popular media often depict EMP effects incorrectly, causing misunderstandings among the public and even professionals, and official efforts have been made in the USA to set the record straight.

So I hope you guys know what you're talking about.