How do you manage the mobile phone

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I was more happy when mobile phones did not exist for public. Now it's almost mandatory to have one, and not just for your job, but the wife, kids, friends etc. also want you to have one.

So, first, what do you think of mobile phones?

I think it's very convenient, obviously, but I really don't accept the implicit thing that if someone calls or texts, you are supposed to answer now, or quick. I don't accept it simply because maybe it was the right time for the caller to call, but it does not magically make it the right time for me to answer. Maybe I'm focused on something, doing something or whatever.

So practically speaking, I often answers hours or days after someone calls or texts me. It makes people angry.

How do you manage that? Do you tell people beforehand to warn you will not reply on the spot? So far I have no strategy for this.

mobile phones are hot spots for corporate advertising. they are a distraction to the real world, they effect dopamine and serotonin production in the brain and phones are rooted from computers, the idea of the computer was based around the idea of the human brain, put into life and when i had a phone, i used to actually sense my consciousness and life leave myself, i guess i'm sensitive regarding external sources, and the phone being such a vast network of different aspects, i never got the hang of it, so i'd never stay on it for long. they made me paranoid, i didn't trust them when i first had a phone. i consider my self a street shadow, if everyone's doing something, i'll probably avoid doing it and find another way, and from what i observed, many people in the streets walk around with phones, or phones plugged into their ears, which when observing, i had a hunch that the reasoning of phones is too distract the population from: each other; the real 'street' issues and they give the population an easy look into the mainstream news as a tool of fear mongering; to computerise the human brains, to gather all information from people for whatever reason, all possibilities considered.

i don't have a phone now, that's how i've managed with it.

at home, i am solitary. in the streets, i am very aware of everyone and everything, i am an outside observer. phones remove that aspect of awareness that i need to keep me alive and soulful. where all born artists, then we are conditioned to follow the masses through peer expectations. if i had it my way, i'd eradicate all phones and computers from planet earth, so we could all connect more in the streets, though if this was reality, i'd still probably be street shadow via conversation anxiety.

Last edited by jordanalmokdad on 14 Dec 2019, 8:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

I leave my mobile phone in random places and don't respond to people if I don't need to.
If it angers someone, well, that's their problem, not mine. But honestly, very little people try to contact me after few years of this kind of management - and I'm perfectly happy that way

I have just started doing that a few weeks ago, it definitely helped me a lot Thanks for the advice.

But I have a wife and 2 kids and they could need to talk to me urgently so I feel bad if I don't have my phone. I could have one phone for family and another for friends ("lol") and work. But I would have to manage 2 phones which is too much for me (I tried already). And then there's work, I don't need to be reachable 24/7 fortunately but still, I can receive urgent requests so...

I really don't see how to have both the normal job and family life, and not being a slave to those devices.

Congratulations, Jordanalmokdad! Don't like phones but do have a wife and two kids and a job...I am happy for your success!

My dad only has a phone because his job gave him one...other than that we used to have to telephone his office, and since he works in the forests a lot nobody was following him around with a desk phone and a roll of copper cable. So we just didn't get in touch that often until he came home at the end of the day.

I have never owned a smart phone and would like to go a long time without ever doing so. I carry a nice modern "flip" phone, 4G and everything. (Not a corporate bot, but I'd like to say that Charity Mobile is an amazing cell carrier. They are very polite, always answer if you call customer service, and are extremely good at getting people great deals on everything from the old-time Kyocera Cadence to the iPhone 11.) Not to mention cheapest bills in the industry that I know of. PC Magazine spoke highly of them as one of the best budget cell carriers.

But back to the phone. It's a flip. Voicemail works. Calling out works, and it rings when you call in. Texting is one of those things that I did figure out eventually but it's not fast, as it's got a numeric keypad and not keyboard. I have a technique but it's just a substitute for what telegrams used to be for.

And now to keep from pulling my phone out to check the time every so often I usually have a pocket watch tucked away in my coat on a strap safety-pinned inside my lapel. It's like a stealth watch. Nobody sees the string going to my pocket and thinks that's what it's for--as pocket watches died out of favor here back in the 1940s.

I often tell my husband: Do we really need to talk about it now? I'm doing <...> and I want to focus on it.
Of course, if the thing is urgent, I switch to it, but in most cases it isn't and telling people - including the loved ones - that they are disrupting me is perfectly acceptable in my culture.

Having job and family is hard anyway.

Phones have become the new “pocket watches.”

My AS-like BFF has explicitly informed me that it's uncomfortable for her to respond quickly. That was very helpful to know it was her way and not me. I am the opposite: I am uncomfortable if I don't respond quickly and to Everything. I try to hold back a bit.

That's what I often do, but at the end it seems pointless because the act of answering "let's see this later please" already disrupted me. If I'm doing something normal, it's kind of OK, but if I'm really focused on something it makes me very angry and that alone makes me unfocused, which is essentially what I would like to avoid.

I guess there's no solution really, and I'll have to accept this?

My best solution was to have 1 phone for wife/kids I would keep all the time, and a 2nd one for other people (so, work related mostly, and the very few friends). But again, managing one phone is already a lot, so 2 might be just too much.

The iPhone has made my job a million times easier. All my client data is on the phone. I no longer have to carry huge physical notebooks in my car. Texting between team members is a real time saver when it's just information or easy question that takes a yes or no answer. Coverage has gotten so good there are places in the woods and rivers where I can take my phone and nobody knows I'm not in the office.

And because it is so tied up with work I have little inclination to use it much otherwise. If I did not do this work, I would have one solely for emergencies.

There are some apps that give you a "burner phone" number that you use on your one phone. You can put your family on one number with different ring tone. I used it briefly a couple of years ago.

"Please, don't call me when I'm at work unless it's really urgent"?

Also, I use my phone to set alarms for all my appointments and other times I need to remember and don't remember naturally - e.g. to beep at the time to get kids from school or to take my meds.

Before there were mobile phones, there were pagers. Someone would page you, the pager vibrated and you had to find a way of calling them back. It felt like I had a chain around my neck. I remember I was in an important meeting in a deep discussion. The pager began vibrating and everyone stopped and pulled out their pager. It took me a minute to realize it was my pager that had gone off. Big distraction.

Where I live I do not have cell phone reception. So the idea of carrying a cell phone only comes into play when I am up and about. So instead of a cell phone I have a go-phone. It is substantially cheaper than a cell phone and cost me around $8 per month. I only use it when I go place and turn it on when I want to use it. Generally it is off so I can save battery life. When my wife and I are shopping at a large mall, it is a good way to find out where she is and coordinate our movements. This drives my family crazy. This is because whenever they try to call me, my phone is off. Also my go-phone doesn't have any recording capability so it doesn't give me voice or text messages.

One problem that I have with a go-phone or cell phone is when I am driving. If someone calls me while I am driving, it breaks my concentration. I feel I need to answer the phone but I cannot and drive safely. So I answer the phone and say "hold on a minute" and then place it on the seat and then drive off onto the shoulder of the roadway so I can talk. It is a major distraction and from my perspective very dangerous. That is another reason why I generally have the phone off except when I need to use it.

I'm gonna do that actually. I know it's not good for the relationship because my wife wants to talk about random stuff during the day, but hell with it. I need my calm, too.

I was 13 when those were "released" in my country, so I did not get to use them, and to be honest I thought about them recently and was thinking that it must be much nicer than smartphones. I usually hate the "it was better before" stuff but there it seems right