In an essay in the Wall Street Journal entitled “My Life as a Cellphone Holdout ” Gary Sernovitz a 40-year-old investment banker and novelist describes his experience of living without a cell phone for the last 20 years (although he’ll be getting one in just a few weeks due to changing work conditions). He cites the statistic that 21 million Americans adults don’t own one either a figure I found both surprising and heartening — perhaps there’s hope for this country after all.
But learning there are that many disconnected fellow citizens was also a bit deflating for me. Here I’d thought I was doing quite well thank you for firmly insisting on holding on to my old-fashioned cell phone which I suppose some people would call a nonsmartphone. I hear these terms bandied about — smartphone iPhone Android what have you — although I don’t know what they mean nor do I particularly want to know. Smart Jews yes that interests me; smartphones not really especially since the smartest Jews I know have never even heard of smartphones.
I’d never even consider getting one of those hip holsters for my phone; it’s much too dignifying of the gadget makes it too much a permanent part of me. Better to keep it at bay to treat it as the pet digital pit bull it is as if on a leash. And so it lies in my shirt pocket where the fact that it’s on perpetual “vibrate” mode makes the chances only about 50-50 that I’ll feel it buzzing in time to answer a call. At least this way I can honestly say my phone has made me more “sensitive.”
True when cell phones were first becoming ubiquitous years ago I had resolved to limit the ways in which I’d use it so as to protect myself from becoming enslaved to it and from having my sense of privacy and humanity worn down by it. But some of those limits — like not speaking on it while walking in public instead going off to the side to answer a call on the street or not sending messages — went by the wayside pretty quickly.
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