Anyone out there without a mobile phone?

ROFLcopter · 29-10-2011 6:01pm

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

What did a pager actually do? Could you respond to the person paging you in any way.

I never had one but my mates did, I think they sent a small message and you responded with a basic Y/N answer

x_Ellie_x · 29-10-2011 7:55pm

I'm without a mobile at the moment unfortunately. Earlier this week, the speaker on my phone has packed in. Voices sound warped so I can't make or receive calls anymore, I can use the phone for is just to receive and send texts. It's a huge problem at the moment because I'm looking for a job so I could be missing calls for interviews and the like. And I can't afford the money for a new phone just yet.

Chuck Stone · 29-10-2011 8:03pm

I use shouting to communicate with people far away.

whydoibother? · 29-10-2011 8:04pm

I think you need to have a mobile in a world where everyone expects you to be quickly contactable. I think others would actually find it frustrating/angering if you didn't. I think it will even reach the point where you are expected to have an iphone/some other sort of internet-enabled thing. More and more, I send an email and get an instant response. I think we will reach a point where it is socially unacceptable not to respond to email very quickly.

JohnMearsheimer · 29-10-2011 8:11pm

I've had one for about 10 years now but I went without one for 4 months this year when I was living in the Rocky mountains. No phone reception where I was living. It was great going without a phone for so long. I didn't carry a wallet or keys around with me either. Very liberating!

Mensch Maschine · 29-10-2011 8:19pm

I've no phone for about 4 months now. I love it.

Before I went about 6 months with one.

mattjack · 29-10-2011 8:23pm

I keep mine in Wexford,just outside Courtown...three bedrooms, near the beach,she's spent the summer there with the ki........was the question mobile home or phone..?

accensi0n · 29-10-2011 8:30pm

I don't even have the internet.

opinion guy · 29-10-2011 8:34pm

What's a mobile phone ?

- Sent from my abacus

Dudess · 29-10-2011 8:36pm

I don't get not having a phone - if you don't like being disturbed, put it on silent and ring/text back when you're in the mood to. I know we managed without them before but that was 10+ years ago - why be inconvenienced/inconvenience others trying to contact you?

Amalgam · 29-10-2011 9:07pm

I resisted through being poor.. I used a small pager you could get in Eircom stores back in the mid to late 90s, black and yellow, Minah? Jaybird? I forget the name.

Awful, finnicky system.

I bought a Nokia 3210 on December 24th, 1999, at about 5.50pm.. Totterdells, Dun Laoghaire.

Aishae · 29-10-2011 9:18pm

I don't think there is pressure to be always contactable and always online. We put that pressure on ourselves. And if you got a phone out of peer pressure it's because you allowed it. I dont see it as a big deal to have a phone. You can keep it on silent etc and you're under obligation to own an Internet phone (or to even use that feature if you have it)
It's FOMO really - fear of missing out. You can do whatever you want with a phone. It's not 'cool' not to have one for the sake of not having one.

However I do think it's gotten mad how many young kids have them. I know a 7 year old with one

Spread · 29-10-2011 9:55pm

joshrogan wrote: »

No I use interpretive dances as a means of communication.

Hey josh! How about a private dance in my personal booth?

ichonk · 30-10-2011 6:22am

Spread wrote: »

joshrogan wrote: »

No thrI use interpretive dances as a means of communication.

The
Hey josh! How about a private dance in my personal booth?

I'm a gadget freak and always have to have the latest mobile, so I guess I'm the opposite of many on this thread. Currently I have the Samsung Galaxy S2 which I'm fairly happy with. I play wit it nonstop.

dermiek · 30-10-2011 7:49am

I don't call or text.

I only use the internet on mine to look up porn with " all you can eat data ".

Sticky_Fingers · 30-10-2011 8:11am

I always had one, I hate the fecking things. Mines been in a cardboard box for the last few months, if people want to contact me they can bloody well ring the house phone where I can pretend I'm not in if it's someone I don't want to talk to.

The thing about mobiles is that even if you don't answer they know you know they called so your obliged to ring back, same thing with text messages. They are the equivalent to a social ball and chain, your trapped no matter where you go.

Hobbes · 30-10-2011 8:16am

Mobile phones took off in 1998. I know this as I was living in the US. I came back after 6 months for a holiday and everyone (even children) had a mobile phone.

I didn't buy one until 2002. I keep mine on silent and treat it like a home phone. Actually games get more usage on it.

Badly Drunk Boy · 30-10-2011 8:47am

I got my first mobile phone in 2006 for my 33rd birthday, when a few family members foisted it upon me because they didn't like not being able to contact me. I'm on my second one at the moment but only because the first one drowned after two hours in the washing machine.

I'm into gadgets but not mad into communication so I mainly use it as a timepiece and alarm.

mfceiling · 30-10-2011 8:58am

Remember the oul lad getting his first phone...he left it in a drawer turned off for a week.
Took it out the following week, turned it on and was amazed that the battery life was still full!!

stovelid · 30-10-2011 9:41am

Dudess wrote: »

I don't get not having a phone - if you don't like being disturbed, put it on silent and ring/text back when you're in the mood to. I know we managed without them before but that was 10+ years ago - why be inconvenienced/inconvenience others trying to contact you?

The whole part of "not having a phone" is letting people know you don't have a phone.

It has nothing to do with convenience, it's a just a tedious lifestyle proclamation.

Plus not having a phone in an era when everybody has is actually rudely inconvenient for others.

Badly Drunk Boy · 30-10-2011 10:39am

stovelid wrote: »

It has nothing to do with convenience, it's a just a tedious lifestyle proclamation.

Plus not having a phone in an era when everybody has is actually rudely inconvenient for others.

It has nothing to do with convenience but it's rudely inconvenient?

Hmmm...

stovelid · 30-10-2011 10:41am

Badly Drunk Boy wrote: »

It has nothing to do with convenience but it's rudely inconvenient?

Hmmm...

Read what I said again.

Aishae · 30-10-2011 1:23pm

Why do people feel they need an excuse for having succumbed and gotten a mobile? 'people didn't like not being able to contact me' 'it was foisted upon me' 'my first phone was a gift' etc. I know sometimes these are true but I find it hard to believe that it's true of so many. When you'd expect at least half (if not more) simply wanted a phone, wanted in on the craze, wanted the convenience etc.
Why does it matter?
Why do people feel they need to make out they got a phone reluctantly?
It's not like drugs, alcoholism etc. There's no huge adverse social stigma to having a phone.

Like I said I know it is genuinely the case for some people that they got a phone reluctantly.

up for anything · 30-10-2011 1:55pm

I remember having to trek a mile to a smelly public phone box in the pissing rain, wait outside ten minutes for the occupant to finish up their time unlimited 2p local call, get in dry off your 2p and make your call only for the the 2p to get stuck. No matter how many times you pressed button B and banged the coin box with your hand the damn thing wouldn't free up and you'd have to turn around and walk the mile back home in the still pissing rain without having made contact with your loved one. So bloody depressing and misery-making. I solved the problem by making friends only with dead people and carrying around a miniature ouija board so I could contact them whenever and from wherever I wanted.

What I don't get is why people say things like, "I don't know why you have a mobile phone when you won't answer it?" Maybe because I don't feel like fecking talking to you!

opinion guy · 30-10-2011 2:29pm

up for anything wrote: »

I remember having to trek a mile to a smelly public phone box in the pissing rain, wait outside ten minutes for the occupant to finish up their time unlimited 2p local call, get in dry off your 2p and make your call only for the the 2p to get stuck. No matter how many times you pressed button B and banged the coin box with your hand the damn thing wouldn't free up and you'd have to turn around and walk the mile back home in the still pissing rain without having made contact with your loved one. So bloody depressing and misery-making. I solved the problem by making friends only with dead people and carrying around a miniature ouija board so I could contact them whenever and from wherever I wanted.

What I don't get is why people say things like, "I don't know why you have a mobile phone when you won't answer it?" Maybe because I don't feel like fecking talking to you!

2p ??? How old are you ? I never remember it being less than 20p and I'm no spring chicken

Dudess · 30-10-2011 5:02pm

I've had a mobile phone since late 1999 - they're so handy. If you're going to be a few minutes late, you can ring/text; if you get lost on holidays/at a music festival, you can ring/text. It's great. Up to this year I only ever had a bog-standard one that I'd use until it gave up the ghost, as I'm not particularly into gadgets, and all I wanted the phone for was ringing/texting. But now I've a smartphone for work and it's great to have the net.

Sticky_Fingers wrote: »

I always had one, I hate the fecking things. Mines been in a cardboard box for the last few months, if people want to contact me they can bloody well ring the house phone where I can pretend I'm not in if it's someone I don't want to talk to.

Nice friend.

The thing about mobiles is that even if you don't answer they know you know they called so your obliged to ring back, same thing with text messages. They are the equivalent to a social ball and chain, your trapped no matter where you go.

It's a means of contacting/communicating. Taking telecommunications technology so personally is a bit irrational. Why do you have one and why have you given people your number? If you're going to be that misanthropic about things, get rid of the phone?

As Aishae says, there is only whatever pressure you make yourself. What's the problem with someone needing to contact you though...? "Trapped" - strange assessment of it...

thomasj · 30-10-2011 5:19pm

InkSlinger67 wrote: »

Back in the 90's, when mobile phones became more easily accessible to the wider public, I resisted purchasing a mobile because I didn't want people knowing where I was all the time.....that's right - I was Hep, Daddio! Eventually, I had to give in and purchase an 088 brick for work reasons. I'm just wondering, are there people out there who refuse purchasing a mobile today for similar or any other reasons?

Today, they seem like they've become a need-to-have thing with the multiple functions they provide apart from being a regular phone. I suppose you could even call certain mobiles status symbols or fashion items these days on top of everything else. I still have a mobile but it's nothing spectacular.

"Sent from my Nokia 3210"

The guys in mountjoy haven't got mobile phones........ or do they?

pickarooney · 30-10-2011 6:11pm

I got my first one last week. I finally found an operator that doesn't steal your money when you don't use credit so got one for emergencies.

im invisible · 30-10-2011 6:57pm

Yakult wrote: »

Morse code ftw.

i think you got a SMS

up for anything · 30-10-2011 8:35pm

opinion guy wrote: »

2p ??? How old are you ? I never remember it being less than 20p and I'm no spring chicken

2p for a local call back in the late 70s. It couldn't have been 20p because I never had a 20p to my name.

3ndahalfof6 · 30-10-2011 8:44pm

up for anything wrote: »

2p for a local call back in the late 70s. It couldn't have been 20p because I never had a 20p to my name.

i remember when it was 1 and a half pence, the old black pay phones with the circular dial.

good logs... · 30-10-2011 10:31pm

theres an uncle of mine that will not use one (own company with 30 aviation consultants and engineers) if hes not in the office or at home he dose not want to know, or it can wait, hes in his 60s. only person i know that dose not have one.

Judgement Day · 30-10-2011 10:35pm

I had one of the bricks back in 1997, paid a small fortune for it too with a monthly contract with Telecom Eireann (I think), and a few months later they were giving the damn things away at filling stations! I managed without one from 1998 to 2003 and then was given a secondhand one which I used until it died about three years ago. I now have a bog standard Sony Ericsson which is still going strong and I find indispensable - texting/alarm/stopwatch - only make calls in an emergency and answer them rarely as I have a landline and don't give out the mobile number. Mainly used as a pager (I don't answer) to summon me to meet my Ex at pre-arranged places. It packed up for a few days recently and I was lost without it as apart from the 'pager' function I use it to wake me up in the morning, timing the immersion and things in the oven. €5 keeps it topped up for about a month - O2 won't get rich from me.

Anyone out there without a mobile phone?

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