[mr_dove]

I sometimes feel like I'm the only one left in the world without a cell phone.

My wife and I had cell phones when we lived in buffalo (frequent blizzards) but we found that we used them very infrequently. Actual minutes used was usually 10-15 minutes per month.

I'm perfectly happy to not have a cell phone but I've never had an experience to make me wish I had one yet either.

Am I really the last holdout?

[DigMe]

Nope. I ditched my last cellphone service before I went to live in China in 2001. Haven't had one since then. Just never got one when I came back in 2002. I haven't really had the money to afford one either but I don't miss it at all. I do keep my old phone in my car and charge it occasionally just in case I ever need to call 911.

brad cook

[hillbilly]

Don't have, never have had, and don't want one.

And I'm not some ancient, anti-technology fuddy-duddy.

Heck, I'm in my early 30s and really like computers.

I hate cell phones.

They interrupt my college classes. They spoil the movies I try to see in the theater. They annoy me at restaurants, they are everywhere, and I hate them. They have caused me to almost die on the highway more than once.

I can forsee situations where a cell phone might be handy to have, but they are a much more common annoyance to me.

Plus, I live so far down a dirt road that people who come to my house have trouble because their cell phones lose reception and they have trouble calling me to recheck and correct their driving directions after they get lost.

hillbilly

[Skunkabilly]

They interrupt my college classes. They spoil the movies I try to see in the theater. They annoy me at restaurants, they are everywhere, and I hate them. They have caused me to almost die on the highway more than once

Cell phones have some nice benefits. I can go online for free using a USB cable (so I save $30-$50 a month on Internet), I eliminate a land line completely (although this has some tactical disadvantages during home defense), and I can talk cross-country to guys like Dan Flory and 45R for free since we're all on the same plan. I use about 250 of my 400 minutes.

As a rule, unless it's an emergency or time critical, I don't pick up a phone during dinner if I'm seated with other people. My old flight instructor told me: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. I.e. don't gab on the radio if you are heading into the dirt or going in the wrong direction. Likewise, I don't fiddle with the radio, commo gear or air conditioning if I need to keep my silver Crisis Response Vehicle pointing in the right direction.

Like guns, cell phone (ab)use and the dangers and annoyances thereof are more of a mindset issue than the item itself. CYBYWY

As a backup I do keep a prepaid calling card with me in case the cellie goes B/O.

[Chuck Dye]

Hillbilly,

Blaming the hardware, not the operator's behavior? Gee, where have I encountered that logic before?:neener:

[Monkeyleg]

I don't have one, either. All day long I'm next to my hard-wired phone. When I'm away from my office, I want to be left alone. (Hmmm, does that sound like Greta Garbo?)

[mete]

There are areas like mine, in rural with mountains where there are very few towers and the mountains block the signals. They don't work here. .. There was a recent poll asking two questions, what electronic gadget do you hate the most and what one would you last want to give up ? For both questions the answers were the same !!! the cell phone .

[schromf]

Had em in the past, hate them they are just electronic leashes.

[XLMiguel]

I find mine very useful and convenient at my convenience . Most of the time it's turned off and stowed. It has voice mail, so I can get msgs on the go, it's useful for bunches of things, esp. in an emergency or calling in an air strike, but on my terms. It's just a tool, afterall.

OTOH, they have spawned a whole new class of bad manners and hazardous behaviors. I have no sympathy for those who seem to be teathered to the damn things, can't drive and talk, etc., and I have a lot of fun telling them to hang up and TCOB, afterall, "if you were really important, you'd have a 'boy' to carry that for you -":evil: Being big & ugly has some minor compensations:D :D

[hillbilly]

Yes, with cell phones I blame the hardware some.

There is no Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear annoying communication devices.

And the guns and cell phones analogy is hardly a logical one.

Cell phones require none of the care that firearms do.

If you violate rules one, two, three, or four with cell phones no one is going to die usually....unless you interrupt a particularly good scene in a movie or don't see that oncoming vehicle in the lane you drifted over to.

Cell phones, unlike firearms, do not encourage discipline, awareness, or care on the part of the users.

If anything, cell phones encourage lack of discipline, lack of awareness, and carelessness on the part of the users.

Cell phones encourage sloppy casual behavior, in my opinion.

But then again, maybe I'm just a bitter paranoid hillbilly?

hillbilly

[BlkHawk73]

I'm another without. I had one for a year or so but at most, I used up 15 minutes one month. Just saw little "need" to have one. I got along fine w/o them the last 30 yrs so I see no reason why I can't continue w/o one now. Besides, sometimes you just do NOT want to be found :p
Do hafta ask what all those that "need" them did 10-15 yrs ago when they weren't available?

[SapperLeader]

I personally like my cellphone but find the lack of most peoples etiqutte tobe most disturbing. I keep mine on vibrate 24/7, and while I may look to see who is calling, 99% of the time I dont answer the phone if Im talking to someone in real life or engaged in dinner or other social activities. Mine gets turned off more movies and class. It is definitly annoying when your immeresed ina movie, or enjoying dinner and a ringer on level 5 goes off breaking your concentration. I dotn know why more people dont use the damn vibrate mode in public.

[ruger357]

I'm also cell-phoneless.

[whoami]

If anything, cell phones encourage lack of discipline, lack of awareness, and carelessness on the part of the users.

Cell phones encourage sloppy casual behavior, in my opinion.

So....cell phones encourage sloppy behavior = true, but guns encourage violence and crime = false.....right.

There is no Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear annoying communication devices.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people.



Man this thread cracks me up. I've had a cell phone for at least 10 years now, and I've never had these kinds of problems. Then again, maybe I'm one of the few who has the intestinal fortitude to NOT ANSWER THE PHONE IF I DON'T WANT TO, and the intellectual capacity to know that it HAS AN OFF BUTTON. I only give the number out to close friends and family, and as a result I maybe get two or three calls a week.

I have an SCH-i600, and I love it. If I need to make a call, I can do it from anywhere. If I need to send an email, check for IMs (AOL, ICQ, MSN), check stock quotes from MSNBC, check movie showtimes from Fandango, or even just play a game of poker, or pacman, or tetris, I can do it all from this nice tiny device.

[frenchwrench]

Another $40.00 a month down the tubes? Pass on that one.No to cellphones.:p

[4v50 Gary]

But for my employer, I wouldn't have a cell phone. I hate those things.:mad:

[HD]

the voices in my head are annoying enough ...:D :p :rolleyes: :neener:

[TechBrute]

I know (and am related to) several people that work in TS areas of Lockheed Martin. They are IT and don't even have cell phones because they can't take them in to work with them. Basically, they would sit in their car 10 hours a day not being used. What good is that?

[Citadel99]

I've got a cell phone and use it as my primary means of communications. I don't answer if I'm talking to someone, eating, relaxing, etc.

Were it not for the Army requiring me to have a land line for when I go on two hour recall I'd probably not even have a land line. It all comes down to using proper etiquitte.

Mark

[DougCxx]

I have a prepaid one I got for a temporary employer's convenience. It was handy at times, but I didn't carry it off the clock at all. -And I have put time on it and carried it when there was an "impending emergency" so to speak. Getting time put on it only takes about half a day, and it can be very convenient. But lately, it has sat unused for about eight months now. I see carrying one partly as being on the end of everybody else's long chain.
.......
I have heard of many people who have left unpaid land-line bills, and so getting any sort of land-line isn't practical for them--and they feel a mobile-phone is handier anyway. In central areas of some major cities, the cost of providing cell phones has become cheaper than providing land-based lines, due to the huge number of existing cable leases already filling underground access tunnels. There have been tech news stories that claimed that eventually this will be the same situation everywhere--that someday within the next couple decades, installation of new "last mile" land-lines will be totally halted out of simple economics, because actually running pieces of wire everywhere costs more than putting up a wireless tower.
--------
After all that however, I am quite frankly stunned at the vast number of regular poor schlubs who simply must be able to converse on trivial and pointless topics with friends 24/7, and are willing to pay $50 a month or more to do it. -->Like lotteries, topless bars and casinos, I simply would never have guessed that poor people would pay so much of their meager money for such a minor and useless thing.
Yet another reason that I am not a billionaire investor.
~

[lee n. field]

Never have. It might be nice to have an alternative means of being reached when the kiddies (and me) hog the phone line for Internet usage, but it's also a >=$35 expense every month that I can't justify.

Someday, but not now.

[Highland Ranger]

Lifestyle question I guess.

Don't see how a responsible parent could not have one. Or Husband for that matter.

But if you are by yourself and accountable to no one, no family you care about etc., then I guess, you don't need it.

Still seems like a good safety device just the same. If you're worried about being tracked you can shut it off and wrap it in tin foil or something.

I on the other hand have come to the conclusion that I am not that important so I just leave it on . . .

:D

[lessthan]

I resisted and resented cell phones for quite a while, but finally ended up buying one each for myself and my girlfriend a few months ago. We only have them for "emergencies" or very occasional use, and so only give out the number to select people.

but it's also a >=$35 expense every month that I can't justify.
I use prepaid Virgin Mobile service (phones can be purchased from Best Buy, Target, etc) that only costs me $20.00 every ninety days, with all unused minutes rolling over. It was the best deal in cell service I found, for the limited-use purpose I had in mind.

[Hkmp5sd]

Never had one. The only reason I have a land-line is to order pizza.

[Smoke]

I never wanted a cell phone. WIfe had one - I didn't. SHe had me about convinced that I needed one when she was pregnant with our first child. I procrastinated long enough that he was born while I was still phoneless. Surprise! It didn't cause any problems with the pregnancy that I had no cell phone.

Jump forward three years and my wife is pregnant again. She comes home with one of the damned things and hands it to me. I carry it everywhere I go...with it turned off. If I need to call someone I can, but no-one can call me.

Smoke

[DougCxx]

I use prepaid Virgin Mobile service (phones can be purchased from Best Buy, Target, etc) that only costs me $20.00 every ninety days, with all unused minutes rolling over. It was the best deal in cell service I found, for the limited-use purpose I had in mind.....
-Yea, mine was given to me by Mom, so I didn't get to choose it but when I asked online, many people said Virgin was the cheapest for limited-use phones.
--------
-The reason I never got one myself was that I went around to four different places that sold cell phones, and asked about prepaid phones. Which they all had. But they all said basically the same thing: that getting a regular plan and paying $30-$40-$50 a month for a "free" phone that had however-many "free-nationwide" minutes every month, played songs when it rang and had a color screen with video games built-in was a better deal than paying $50 for a basic phone and possibly as little as $80 per year for service (as I -really- didn't expect to use the phone much). I patiently tried to explain that it was unlikely I'd use the phone for even twenty minutes a month (which turned out to be true by quite a margin), and those calls would very likely be only local, but they insisted. None of them knew anything about how to use the prepaid phones, but they could show you every idiot childish feature of the $50-a-month phones. So all four times, I quickly got mad and left, and that was when I started asking around online--but then was given one.
~

[seeker_two]

Please don't tell me that the majority of people on THR haven't figured how to turn a cell phone OFF???? :scrutiny:

Learn your equipment & use it in a neighborly way. Problem solved..:D


;)

[TheEgg]

Have one and have learned to hate it.:mad:

It is because of my job -- I supervise computer/internet/telephone systems that must run 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Since I am in charge, anything that goes seriously wrong gets bucked up to me, fast. So, wherever I am, I am tied down with the damn thing.

If I ever change jobs, that is one feature the new job will not have, even if I have to take a substantial pay cut to get rid of it.

However, I will still probably have one around for saftey/communication with family issues.

[Frankly 45]

Skunkabilly,

Could you explain how you do this?
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Cell phones have some nice benefits. I can go online for free using a USB cable (so I save $30-$50 a month on Internet)

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I'd much rather spend the extra $ on a new gun!

Thanks for sharing,

Frank