Tag: smart phone

How did I get so attached?? #MFRWauthor

Using smart phonesWhen Jack and I lived in a small town in Virginia, we routinely drove in and out of Richmond and Charlottesville (50 miles and 35 miles respectively) for grocery shopping, plays, dinner, work, etc. and never gave a thought that we were driving those distances on two-lane country roads WITHOUT A DARN CELL PHONE. In fact, there weren’t any cell phones back then. Sure, the thought of breaking down crossed my mind, but houses weren’t spaced out too far, and I just figured I’d walk to one of them and call for help. Now that I have a cell phone? I can’t drive half a mile from home without panicking if I discover I’ve forgotten the phone. I’ve turned into a phone wuss, and I’m not proud of it.

For the longest time, I had a flip phone, long after Goggling on smart phonesmart phones were out. “You have the oldest phone of anyone I know,” a friend once told me. I smacked the lid down on the screen and said, “I use my phone for making calls. I don’t need all that stuff that comes on smart phones.” Sigh. Or for the naivete! Of course, as soon as I got a smart phone I set up weather, Google, a news app, and Solitaire. I am picking the phone up a hundred times a day to do something on it that doesn’t involve making a call.

I am happy to say that I don’t keep my phone with

me all the time. I’m not stuck to it. But every time I’m in one room and an alarm goes off or I receive a call on the phone in a different room, I curse the fact that I don’t have it stuck to me. My, how the mighty have fallen.

What about you? Are you a slave to your phone?

Read the next blog in the blog hop by going here.

Dee

Burning Bridges by Anne Krist
One Woman Only
Only a Good Man Will Do
Naval Maneuvers

Reluctantly APPed #MFRWauthor

For years I avoided getting a smart phone. Well into the current millennia I used the reliable flip phone. It didn’t alert me to texts (there weren’t no stinkin’ texts) or when anything needed to be upgraded. It made calls, It Boring flip phonereceived calls. I laughed smugly at all those people glued to their Blackberrys and iPhones. I mourned for all those lost conversations when people sat across the table from friends and spent their time texting. I glared at those who unthinkingly knocked people on the sidewalk while playing Candycrush.

Then—through no fault of my own—I received a smart phone.

Now I too have apps. Now I text and I check the news and I look things up, yes, even once in a while as I sit at the table with friends. I am a bad Apps, apps, and more appsperson.

So… My favorite apps are pretty boring:

  • Weather—Yes, just like many very interesting people, I have an affinity for weather is. I check my phone for weather sometimes even when I could look out the window. But I don’t just check my own weather. I also check where my mom lives in Iowa, my in-laws’ home in Chicago, Fort Worth weather for my family in Texas, and any number of other places of interest (do you know the temperature is right now in West Yellowstone, WY? I do!). Weather is an important part of my daily routine. (Oh. My. God. I’m old.)
  • News—Okay, I admit to being a news junkie. I probably check the news a dozen times a day to read what I could also find out on the TV or radio. It satisfies some need in me that I wish I could get rid of.
  • Google—Despite disliking Google intensely, I still find it the easiest way to find out all kinds of useless, trivial information. We can be watching a show on TV. Jack will say, “We have seen that actress before.” I pull out the phone, look up the show we are watching and the episode, find the cast, find the particular character, link to her, and recite the shows that person has been in until we recognize where we have seen her. Meanwhile, I have missed the last five minutes of the actual program.
  • Google Maps—What good is hearing about a location of a murder on an Investigation Discovery program if I can’t conveniently see for myself where that place is?
  • Solitaire—I can’t help it, I play this mindless game whenever I am bored. If The ubiquitous SolitaireI had to give up all apps, this is the one I would go of last. I am a sad, sad person.

Okay, so now you know my secret life. Don’t judge me. 😉

Read the next blog in the blog hop by going here.

Dee
Only a Good Man Will Do: Seriously ambitious man seeks woman to encourage his goals, support his (hopeful) position as Headmaster of Westover Academy, and be purer than Caesar’s wife. Good luck with that!
Naval Maneuvers: When a woman requires an earth-shattering crush of pleasure to carry her away, she can’t do better than to call on the US Navy. Sorry, Marines!