Is That Your Phone? by Bea Tifton

 

Recently, I had to get a new cell phone. I didn’t want to, because I had my old one set up just the way I wanted it, but the old one broke and wasn’t functioning. And I had to get one quickly because, well, everyone needs a cell phone, right?

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a love/hate relationship with my cell phone. I have since one of my best friends dragged me kicking and screaming into the cell phone dealer for my first cell phone all those years ago.  And another friend encouraged me to text over my objections as well. I’m not a Luddite. I just didn’t see that it was necessary for people to be able to get hold of me every minute of every day.

Remember when we had to stay home because we were expecting a phone call? Not now. You can find out about your extended car warranty wherever you are. And remember when we, gasp, just blindly answered the phone? Now my phone is nice enough to warn me of “Potential Spam” and I let it go to voice mail. And, come to that, I remember how grown up I felt when I got my first answering machine my freshman year of college. I spent hours on the phone in junior high and some in high school. These days, I prefer to text even among my closest friends. One of my best friends and I have a running joke. On the very rare occasions when we call each other, one of us will answer, “I don’t use my phone for this, but go ahead.” My lifestyle could be broken into two time periods, BC, or “Before Cell,” and AD, or “After Domination,” for my cell phone has come to the forefront of my life somehow.

Now my cell phone is my office. I have all of my contacts stored in it. I laugh when I remember how many phone numbers I used to have stored in the attic of my mind. Now, I know my parents’ cells, but that’s it.  And I have all my appointments, occasions, etc. entered on my cell phone’s calendar.

When I was getting my new cell phone, I was anxious that my photos wouldn’t transfer. I know, I know. I should have been uploading them to cloud storage, but I didn’t. And even though it was set to backup, the phone had not backed up since October and I didn’t check. As I watched the phone wizard at my local cell phone store try this and then that to make my photos transfer, I thought of what was there. My photos of baby Grace, the kitten I started bottle feeding when she was just two weeks old. Pictures of my parents, pictures documenting various aspects of my life. Luckily, the amazing woman at the phone store was able to get into the wrecked phone just enough to transfer all my photos after about three hours. Good thing the phone store wasn’t busy or I doubt she would have spent that much time trying.

I have a friend who loves taking pictures. Wherever we go and whatever we’re doing, she’s running around like a manic hummingbird, flitting here and there taking photo after photo. Honestly, I wonder if

she's not so busy documenting the things she does and the places she goes that she fails to actually experience them. 

And there's my friend who will not put her phone down. She * has* to check her work email even at times when she can’t do anything about the current crisis, then it ruins her meal or her day out as she stews or fumes. And when I’m talking to her or we’re eating, she’s checking social media and half listening. Sometimes I wonder if she knows I’m there at all.

A local tea shop has cell phone lockers and, while guests are not required to use them, they are certainly urged to do so.  One of my friends marveled at how freeing it was not to be able to check her phone. She had to be mindful of her experiences and was so much more tuned in to what her friend was saying.   Even if we aren’t in a place with a phone locker, putting down our cells and not checking them for a while seems like such a great idea. Less technology, more people time. And if we stop to smell a few roses while our phones are tucked away or on silent, all the better.

Photo Credits:

Cell Phone: Harry Cunningham

Girl on Rotary Phone: Rodnae Productions

Baby Grace: Bea Tifton

Hummingbird: Steven Paton

Woman Smelling Flowers: Anekke