I am viewed by some of my acquaintances as something of a cave man, mainly because I do not own a smart phone. When I looked at the technology, I saw several major disadvantages right off:
- Tiny screens and bad eyesight don’t go well together. I usually wear distance glasses, and I would have to do a quick switch to reading glasses to be able to discern the images and text clearly.
- I actually have a flip phone which I use for special occasions, but I was disturbed by suddenly being inundated by calls in Mandarin Chinese.
- Thanks mostly to the 2024 election, I am inundated with text messages begging for donations—with the result that my cell phone is mostly off and rarely travels with me. I find it onerous to manage a whole lot of text messages.
- Driving around Los Angeles, I am disturbed by drivers who are still texting when traffic signals change to green.
- At my supermarket, the parking lot is 30% occupied by men and women who are fingering their smart phones, making it hard for legitimate shoppers to park.
Several years ago, my friend Mohan offered to present me with a free smart phone and was shocked that I refused on the grounds that it would make my everyday life more stressed and worrisome in every way.
I might be a cave man, but if so, I am a happy one. There are too many things that I love and that do not require so radical a change of life as the care and feeding of a smart phone.
Tarnmoor 
You’re wise to avoid them.
That’s the thing though isn’t it? Because, actually, they ‘do not require so radical a change of life’ – we just think they do, and much of their programming seems designed to convince us that we are right about that. Most of their purpose is, in fact (although probably I am talking about the Internet in a broader sense), devoted to convincing us we are right about everything. And eventually we are all right about everything in a world where everything is just what we imagine it to be, especially in our nightmares.
But, you know, you are under no obligation to answer the ringing sound, answer texts, be told what you need to buy urgently by a call centre, or even look at the pretty pictures.
But they do come in handy on a dark stormy night with a flat tyre and a strong suspicion that actual troglodytes might be hungry and lurking in the bushes.
There remains that problem of comprehending what is imaged and written on those tiny screens. Thankfully, in Los Angeles, there are few stormy nights — maybe once every two years.