My Smartphone & Me.

[Crawler]

I have a smartphone. A Samsung Galaxy S3. Bought a pair for me and the wife about a year & a half ago. I don't mind that it was already at least two generations outdated. All I needed was a more recent (& more capable) phone than the 5+ year old "multimedia" phone I had; I also needed "new, in box" so as to ensure there wouldn't be any surprise issues.

Anyway. Let's see if I can get to the point. Warning: This post is likely going to be just this side of philosophical . That said, I welcome any conversation.

So, SWMBO complains that I'm "always plugged into something . If I am allowed, I play video games for relaxation & to have an outlet to vent agitation. As for my phone: I'm A.D.D. This means that when I'm not actively engaged in something, like a conversation, or a really good t.v. show, I might be on my phone occupying backburner processes in my brain. It usually starts as a random curiosity, spawned by a random shot or a post on here. I then fall down a web-fu rabbit hole named Google. It is a journey of self education. I don't mind this. I grew up on network television; sometimes PBS was the only channel with anything interesting on!

The wife "shoots daggers" from her eyes at me if I mention the hours a day she spends playing on her phone. Then it dawned on me: I don't have a single game on my smartphone! Instead, I'm always reading! Some reading is more "productive" than others, but oh well.

Another thought: most teens these days have smartphones. And I dare say they are almost never productive with them. ...I'm only 30. There are much worse things I could be doing with my phone.

I feel like I'm leaving something out, I might remember it later.

[dinnermint]

It's funny, I'm kind of in a similar boat with you (not married, dunno bout that one) 28 with a gf. Forced into the smartphone game because of work. Emailing at tradeshows and travelling to train customers on products.

In my situation, the gf never complains about my technology usage (xbox1 & galaxy s6). That's simply because she doesn't notice, her eyes glued to the screen even when watching "her" shows. I must say, it does get annoying for me, since I was raised with conversationalists. Spending time with someone is usually done over a pot of coffee at the kitchen table, chatting back and forth, letting everyone in and no one dominating the conversations. However, I have come to accept that this style of socializing is dead and everyone I know is engrossed in the tiny screens nowadays. It's something that is no longer confined to the younger generation, it has permeated our entire culture.

Where does this leave me? Surrounded by people who are on their phones and nothing to do, but dive into my phone....

[Kees]

The missus keeps telling me I should buy a smartphone. Unfortunately I cannot deal with touchscreens: too fatfingered. I am toying with the idea of buying a BlackBerry Priv but its price still puts me off.

[Ernie1980]

I have a smartphone (on it now actually) but enjoy speaking face to face more than any conversation on a screen. Smart phone as a rule are actually making us less in touch IMO. Many of my coworkers would rather play on their phone rather than talk to people on their breaks!

[JOB15]

The best feature on my state of the art smart phone is the stopwatch .

Its counting now : 14.55.1 that means my washing finished 2 mins ago

[Crawler]

The missus keeps telling me I should buy a smartphone. Unfortunately I cannot deal with touchscreens: too fatfingered. I am toying with the idea of buying a BlackBerry Priv but its price still puts me off.

I'm not necessarily fat-fingered, but I loathe touchscreen keyboards! All the phones I had previous my current S3 had a full qwerty keyboard. Much easier to use, and less mistakes had. That Priv looks like a nice option, too bad about the price, though. If it didn't have Android, I'd stay away from it. When I finally had to get a new phone, there weren't any with a keyboard that were worth a hoot. I generally prefer that happy middle-ground where quality and price meet. At the time, the Galaxy S3 fit the bill.

On another note. I don't much care for social media. For one thing, I've never liked jumping on the bandwagon of any fad. Twitter certainly seems like a fad to me. And I'm extremely happy that I got rid of Facebook! The app, anyway: for the last several years, I only log into my FB profile a couple times a year ("Hi family! I'm still alive...").

My previous phone had the FB app installed when I got it (bloatware style). By the time I upgraded, my phone would suck the battery down in roughly ten hours. I would also hit my "un-throttled" data limit of 2.5 gigs in about 10-12 days. Despite the fact that almost all of my "browsing" was done on WiFi. New phone didn't have FB preinstalled, and I don't use half of the same data limit in a whole MONTH!!! Logic dictates that the data usage was from FB tracking my every movement as I went about my day, spying on me!

Until next time... I've got too many buzzers to chase at work right now .

[sharptonn]

I had one for a week. Tossed it to my daughter and reactivated my flip-phone. Drove me nuts!

[10Pups]

I popped for an iPhone. Wish I hadn't but cards played. Speaking of play get Real Racing 3 and Kill Shot. If you have 2 minutes to play you'll get busted playing for 1/2 an hour. I am an old gamer from the Pong days and this phone has brought back the kid in me. I do miss the Android platform though. Oh it makes calls and I have learned to prefer texting :<0)

[TheGeek]

Oddly for a techie I'm hit or miss with my phone. But it hit home last night. I was reading something and our oldest came and kissed me goodnight. I didn't look up and my wife chastised me for it and took her up to bed.

I promptly put the phone down, went upstairs, interrupted her stir time and apologised for not looking up from my phone.

Then I sat and listened to story time.

Geek

[thebigspendur]

I swore I'd never carry no smartphone. When I was working I usually carried 3 cellphones and a two way radio and I swore when I retired I wouldn't carry any cellphone and though I had an ancient one I rarely carried it.

So a few months ago I got a smart phone and I spend most of my time with it deleting junk. My wife sends me these messages with this stupid shorthand which I don't understand so now I send her messages using "10" codes. She's not amused.