The Israel I was born into had few personal/private phones. At that
time, only physicians and government officials had a phone at home.
I was four when we got a line at our apartment, and we had
to share it with a neighbor family. That meant any time the neighbors used the
phone, ours would be dead. My father complained that their daughter was a teenager,
and that meant (you guessed it) she was on the phone for hours. But who would
this teenager be talking to when few families had phones?
Being the first two families in the building with phones also
meant a line of neighbors at our door in the evenings asking to use our phone
and each paying us the cost of a local call. It was a fixed equivalent of ten
cents. In those days, one would never turn down a neighbor’s wish to talk on
the phone to one of their relatives who were also lucky to have a phone. This meant we perennially
had neighbors in our living room waiting for their turn. It was just fine.
About a year or two later, more lines popped up and we even
got the neighbors with the teenage daughter off our shared line. The country
was growing, and now most people had landlines into their homes.
Then came the modular phones, which meant a phone in every
room. You’d think this provided privacy, but it didn’t because it was a single
line and the dreaded click of a parent listening to my conversations (by then I
was approaching the teen years) meant it was in fact less private.
Then came answering machines, and we didn’t run to answer
the phone anymore because the machine would get it. Eventually the first mobile
phones appeared, then the many lines to a single residence, and, you
guessed it--- the smart phones. So smart, that they not only track us
but listen to us.
By then I was living in the USA and our family was among the last to switch to smartphones. We
were forced to when Verizon shut down the 3G network. I witnessed others who got
a head start on these brilliant gizmos, carrying these little buggers from room
to room, even sitting to dinner with their phone next to their plates.
This is exactly what I didn’t want to do or become. Me, a slave to my phone? No thanks.
We’re all caught up for the moment with phone conveniences.
But I have learned a thing or two in the few years where others surfed smartly,
and I stayed basic. I learned what I didn’t want and find that I now use my genius
phone the way we used our first landline way back when. Ninety-five percent of
the time it’s in a fixed place. It’s never “on me,” and definitely never ever at
the dinner table. My phone is turned off every night. I disabled almost all
notifications.
Because I want to own a phone that doesn’t own me. I remember
the days when life was richer because we were not awash in the phony (pun
intended) notion that without a phone life’s bells cease ringing.
