I'm Not A Phone-y....

Let’s make this clear. I am not a Luddite. I embrace technology, and use some form of it constantly in my work, from recording equipment, to microphones, to social media platforms. But I’m sure I am in a very low percentile as far as how attached I am to my phone. I use it plenty, I text, I take photos, I check scores, and watch games occasionally. But I also will leave it in my office when I take a nap, leave it in my car when I am doing something that doesn’t make it important. And much to my wife’s chagrin, I don’t check it all the time. I fairly often spend the entire evening with my phone charging in my office, and never look at it. No chagrin for Jayne in those cases, because I will be with her.

My lovely bride is probably a more common example of the usual American, whose reliance, and enjoyment, of all things phone has grown exponentially. Fifteen years ago, she would often chastise my kids for being on their phone too much, and by now, she dwarfs the amount of time they ever were on the cell. There are many good aspects to this, she sends me funny and interesting videos and stories often, and I pretty much always know what’s going in the world, and her world. But, I can’t say I’m not annoyed a bit when we are watching a film or show and she is checking out stuff on the phone instead of just watching. I likely am actually on my phone probably one fifth of the time that she is, although some of that time is business related.

Since I’ve been on this planet since the late fifties, and through one of my passions watching old movies or just living life, I pretty much am in touch with the entire history of the phone, which now has more impact on our lives by leaps and bounds than ever. Old Alexander Graham Bell got the ball rolling, receiving the first patent for a phone in 1876. Most of my knowledge of him comes from Don Ameche playing him in the movies. Only ten years later (in real life, not the movies) over 150,000 people had telephones. But the technology of it was slow to develop, and it pretty much was used for the same purpose, merely conversing, for more than one hundred years.

There were developments that we would see from popular culture through the years that seem more archaic and fascinating by the minute. If you watched old movies like me, an exciting event would often be highlighted by a shot of frantic ladies operating a swamped switchboard as people called in for information on some calamity. Neighborhood gossip, and/or small town life would be portrayed by the “party line” shared by more than one family or individual. with the operator often being the intermediary. Sometimes exasperated folks would be annoyed by having to wait for the use of the phone because of their gabby predecessor.

This would also happen often as a comic or dramatic use of the phone booth, a staple of life for dozens of years. Tension would build, or exasperation would rise, or laughs would ensue, as one or more people were lined up outside a phone booth waiting their turn. I mean, where would Superman change his duds these days. I wonder how many active phone booths there are in this country. Well, I won’t wonder because I looked it up. There are fewer than 100, 000, and if you think that phone history isn’t accellerating, think of the fact that the high water mark of over two million booths only came in 1999.

The phone as a prop has been used in myriad ways, and perhaps never better than by the magnificent Bob Newhart. Newhart rose to fame with a standup career that was built on his one-sided conversations with everyone from Ben Franklin to ordinary people. You would only hear Newhart, not the other conversant. A phone ringing also was the beginning of each episode of the original “Bob Newhart Show”, an award-winning long running classic that very much holds up (besides the fashion and……the phone).

Texting was developed in the mid-80’s, but did not really come into commercial usage commonly until the very late 90’s. I find texting a completely mixed blessing. Yes, it’s convenient, and a simple way of connecting, but it’s also a handy, dandy excuse for not speaking with someone. As time moved on, texting not talking has really become the rule not the exception. I still do not really like to text when I have something to say that’s longer than, say three sentences, but it’s so common that people won’t pick up a call, you are pretty much forced to text. I eventually found out, particularly with younger co-workers, that you HAD to text. I would call someone, they wouldn’t pick up. The I would text and get an instant response. Hell, you can text someone saying that you are going to call immedately, and they wont pick up.

There once was a kind of romance to leaving a message on an answering machine, I mean an actual physical one. It’s a part of the romance that brought my wife and I together. The first weekend that we had real extended contact was at the Senior PGA tournament in 2000. We were flirting, and eventually had sort of agreed to meet for drinks after the final round. It was a busy weekend, and I never checked my answering machine during the weekend. I reminded her after the final round that I still owed her drinks and we went to O’Dowd’s on The Plaza on Sunday night. Monday night after I returned from work, I finally checked my messages, and there was one from her from Saturday night reminding me that I had offered to buy her drinks. I was so happy I acted on my own initiative, without the gentle prod that she had provided.

As cell phone technology has gone on, it has killed off many things. The fancy car phone that was such a sign of being well-to-do. I guess the modern equivalent would be having a private jet, or at least a NetJet subscription. The giant “brick’ cell phone was in major use for only about five years, and gone in ten. I would say it looks even funnier in old sitcoms that any old classics, rotary phones, and others. The flip phone has had a more interesting history, being the main option for a few years, then seen as completely outdated, and eventually trendy.

Certainly killed off is the ability and necessity of remebering phone numbers. I can still remember by childhood best friends phone number without even working at it. There once were creative ways to help you remember by creating words out of the phone number’s accompanying letter. You might call IVY-4432. You still see it business wise by it just seems quaint when you see 1-800-BUY-BEEF. I can honestly say the only two numbers I know by heart are my wife’s and my own.

But there is nothing that quite rates as high on the kill rate as photgraphs. The first cell phone with a camera came out around 2000, but it was a few years before it started to overtake people still actually taking ALL their photos with a phone. I went to Europe in 2010, and I know I used a camera that whole time. Admittedly, as you have found out in this entire piece, I am hardly cutting edge in all of this. But still, people did still have cameras that they used. I would say now it is pretty much reserved for serious photographers, and professionals.

Disposable phones are pretty much now just novelty items when they used to be quite commonplace. For instance, when my daughter got married about four years ago, she gave all the guests disposable cameras as a fun little treasure. I actually used it, but I know that I never even devloped the pictures because many cell phone pictures were taken. I DO still have it as a souvenir. Last year when we were in Switzerland, a young lady traveling alone was at the top of a mountain on the viewing platform with us and she offered to take a real-live actual photo with an excellent camera. She said she would email the photo to use, and she actually did. It is a great treasure of ours. You can tell the quality is better, but not by much, and maybe we think we can tell because we know it was.

There is one area that I am an old school stickler for. All phones now have pretty good audio recording capability, and many professional use them in locker room settings and the like. It is convenient and you can ship off the sound immediately, which is a plus. But the microphones are omnidirectional and I refuse to use them, and if I were in charge I wouldn’t let anybody use them except in a quiet controlled setting. I can instantly tell when someone has done this, and often all the extraneous noise render the quality pretty awful. I imagine you have noticed this, and if you haven’t you likely will now. I use an actual professional microphone and recording device. It adds one step, but it in my cranky old man opinion is totally worth it.

But one final thing will convince you of my lukewarm affection for all things phone. I have an Android phone. That’s what I’ve always had, and likely what I will take to the grave. I know it, it does everything I need, and I have never been tempted to get an I-Phone.

And almost certainly never will.