I signed up for my first mobile phone with great reluctance.
It was the late 1990s and, in the end, I folded under peer pressure. Pretty much everyone else I hung around with in London at that time had a mobile. And it just seemed easier to buy a crap one from Carphone Warehouse to put on the pub table alongside theirs, rather than having to keep explaining why I didn't believe I needed a brick of my own.
In time, I have to concede, it did become a useful tool - particularly for work - but, deep down, I still kind of hankered after the days when people couldn't find me.
Yes, I know I could have turned it off - and now do so regularly - but you obviously develop a habit (particularly when work's involved) of checking for messages and, therefore, never really turning yourself off fully.
I tell you all this because my current mobile phone conked out this morning and seems incapable of being resuscitated. I have since spoken to Vodafone who, sadly, are making swift arrangements to replace it. I have also shoved my SIM card into an old handset and am now fully contactable once again.
But my point is this; for almost 40 minutes when I was out and about at lunchtime and for around an hour and a quarter as I travelled home from work, no-one could get me and there was no point in me fretting about it.
Heaven.
For a long time I have resisted the urge to have a mobile phone. Even now, despite the fact that our youngest daughter bequeathed me her old one, it is very rarely used because
ReplyDelete1) not many people now my number
2) it lives in the car and is usually switched off
3) it is treated as an means of emergency contact only!
I always say, if somebody really wants to get me they will ring the house phone and leave a message, or they will call round to see me!
I really do value my privacy and look on mobile phones as an uneccesary intrusion!