One of the ironies of modern life is that while smartphone sales have soared, we talk less and less by phone. Phone calls are nowadays largely the preserve of the political fundraiser, or the family emergency. What people dislike is the expectation “of your immediate attention, paying no heed to the possibility that you may be busy doing something else”. Voicemails are worse: invariably mumbled and rambling. An estimated 100 billion business emails are sent each day – wasting 37% of the average professional’s working week, which shows just how little people want to use the phone. We will do anything to avoid it”. (Sathnam Sanghera, The Times, London)
In America the majority of phone calls are either for political fundraising, or from that Indian crowd, purporting to work for Microsoft and wanting access to your computer (“Not again”, I told them yesterday. “You were supposed to have been through my files and stolen my passwords last week”). So if you don’t talk to your friends on the phone, except to announce that you’ll be ten minutes late, then you are reduced to texting (you can’t maintain a friendship texting), or meeting in restaurants where the noise is so great that you can barely hear a word. This is tough on Epicureans, who place such high value on friendship ( and good food). How about a nice, gentle walk in the countryside and a meaningful conversation?
I don’t have a modern cellphone; I regard this odd fact as Epicurean. I would be looking at it every five minutes. I do make my own greeting cards and send seasonal greetings and thank you’s on them. Sounds anti-deluvian, doesn’t it? I do it because I enjoy doing it, along with a nice, gentle walk in the countryside and a meaningful conversation.
People are using internet messaging more instead of phone calls, but that is a good thing as it allows you to have a conversation over a long period of time, rather than all at once. So I could send a message in the morning, get a reply at lunchtime, and send another messenge in the evening. It saves a lot of time. I’ve been told that work emails are a nightmare, but to be honest most people don’t use email as a means of personal, meaningful communication.
Robert, in my opinion, I don’t believe that not having a smartphone is Epicurean. It allows you to contact those closest to you, as well as acquaintances you other wouldn’t talk to, in a way that isn’t time consuming or inconvenient. Its true that there is a small minority of people who check their phones every five minutes, but most of us just use it when there is an obvious need. Smartphones also allow you access to information nearly all the time, which may come in handy when you least expect it.
Well, I sort of had my tongue in my cheek, Owen. The reality is that my wife has an all-singing, all-dancing cellphone, and I have an i-pad. Since we are with one another 90% of the day, I don’t need more than an old fashioned cellphone, and hardly use it. Texting/messaging on the i-pad I find rather unrewarding (that is, I don’t get many messages). Perhaps you could educate me. Maybe I am sending messages to the wrong numbers/addresses. Do you send messages to people’s cellphone number or to their email address if you are using an Apple i-pad?
Usually their email addresses, or Facebook messenges. But since you don’t have Facebook I wouldn’t have thought that using an iPad would be a particularly good means of communication, especially as you can’t send text messages on the iPad, only emails and Facebook.
“[M]ost of us just use it when there is an obvious need.”
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I share Owen’s take on the virtues & limitations of smart phones. Hard to beat them when it comes to logistics or messages that don’t require much conversation, just short bits of information.
The Epicurean ideal of face-to-face exchange of ideas? not over the phone, iPhone, smart-phone or iPad.