Sometimes we don’t realize what slaves we are to modern technology until we are forced to face life without it. Then, it's like we’ve been thrust back into the stone age, having to make fire with rocks and hunt for our food.
OK, maybe it wasn’t that bad when my cellphone died but it was still a pain in the backside to live three full days without a phone. Sure, I still have a few friends who don’t even have cellphones, those poor Neanderthals, but the numbers who don’t have some kind of cellphone are quickly dwindling as the last bastion of holdouts get pods under their beds ("Invasion of the Body Snatchers" reference – Google it if you have a smartphone).
Even I used to laugh at kids who I’d see constantly texting on their phones, unable to carry on a face-to-face conversation without using an emoji and a handful of hashtags. However, in recent years, my life has become intermingled with cellular technology. Now I’m not a hashtag nut or a big online poster, but I’ve become dependent on my phone, mainly for its original intended use – communication. It’s so easy to rifle off a text or make a quick call with your handy, dandy cellphone.
Like many people, I no longer have a home phone. It got to the point where we never used a landline anymore since three of us have cellphones in the house. The only people who would call us on our landline were telemarketers and family members who couldn’t get us first on our cellphones. This all worked out fine until my cellphone decided it wasn’t going to charge anymore. That’s when I found out how dependent I’ve become to my cellphone. I’d become that teenager I used to make fun of who has to have his cellphone.
Believe it or not, I actually felt myself becoming anxious at the prospect of not having a phone for three days (that’s how long it took to ship the new one). All kinds of crazy thoughts were going through my head. What was I missing? Were people trying to get ahold of me?
What if I had a breakdown on the road? Would I have to hitchhike or, perish the thought, have to walk up to a stranger’s house and ask to use the phone to call a tow truck? Or, would I have to use a payphone? Do they even make payphones anymore? How could I find anything without my phone’s GPS? A map? Nobody reads maps anymore. I could easily become hopelessly lost, wandering aimlessly without my GPS. I don’t even own any maps.
These are all things I used to never worry about when I had a cellphone. It’s amazing how many things are integrated into the normal smartphone nowadays, things that we take for granted. Sure, you can live without them but it makes life harder not to have them at your fingertips. Like I’ve said before, cellphones make every person the smartest person in the world as all the answers are right there provided you know what questions to ask. I guess I missed not being the smartest man in the world for a few days.
Standard reporter Duane Sherrill can be reached at 473-2191.