When we first retired and moved here we had very poor cell reception in our house so we got a land line. Several years ago they put up a new tower (mono-pine…that they argued about for a long time…nobody wanted it near their home) and then reception was fine. Now the land line (my wife insists we keep it as a backup) is 90% robo calls even though we’re on the “no call” list.

When they first started becoming popular, I resisted getting a phone.... Now many years later, I can't imagine not having one. It has replaced needing a watch, a camera, a video camera, a calculator, a home computer, flashlights, magnifying glass, a level, a sound meter, newspapers, paper maps, GPS in car boat and airplane, encyclopedias, dictionaries, want-ads, trips to the bank, snail mail, land line etc.

My 30 something kids text us all the time, I keep in touch with groups of old friends on Signal and WhatsApp. I use google maps almost daily. I order and track parts on-line at least weekly. Of course it also is used at a phone.

Not having one now would be difficult for me.

I don't think we could do all that my wife and I do without ours but there's something to be said about a simplified life. Congratulations on your freedom from omni-connection! Sounds like you are enjoying life better than most without one.

You aren’t missing anything! Being always reachable isn’t a good thing in my book.

Couldn't be without it. In fact, it's in a case that also holds credit-cards, DL, ins cards and cash, so always in a pocket or within reach. I ride motorcycles and as such, it's always zipped in a jacket pocket when riding. I'm always amazed that people actually mount their cell phones on the handlebar of the bike to use the GPS. In the event of an accident, the last place you want your phone is attached to your bike 100 yards away, especially if you're injured.

When wife or kids are traveling, they can share their live map so we can check their progress while en route, and the list goes on.

For online banking, shopping, GPS, weather, stock market, news, etc., it's indispensable. Haven't had a land line in probably 20 years.

I’m waiting for someone to chime in that they gave up computers and the internet…

Maybe this is what Tabs did… who knows? :confused:

How many are reading this on their cell phone right now?

👋🏽

Me

That's a whole different kettle of fish. Our cells have Internet at the house, as a matter of fact, our Internet at the house (used for Netflix/streaming and my working from home) is via T-mobile Home Internet. If it wasn't for that, our only other option would be satellite (we'd be on starlink). We are in the middle of nowhere, but are lucky that we are close enough to an Interstate that we have service.

I have a real love/hate relationship with my smart phone. Most of the time I absolutely abhor the damn thing, but I do recognize its utility. My recent darn near 4,600 mile jaunt in a 52 year old 911 track car was made immeasurably more relaxing with the knowledge that it was in my glove box, ready to call for help should worse come to worse. Yes, I made similar journeys long before there were cell phones, but I did wind up knocking on more than one farmhouse door, or sitting next to a broken down machine (usually a motorcycle) with my thumb out. That might have been more "adventurous", but I was a lot younger then as well. These days I can do with a bit less of that kind of "adventure".

Around the house, it pretty much serves as an erstwhile "wall phone". It stays in one room, I don't haul it around with me. If I'm in the garage tinkering, or at my loading bench, it's upstairs in the kitchen. I'll check it when I go upstairs for lunch or something. When I'm driving it's in the glovebox, riding it's tucked away inside my jacket.

I do not use it to navigate. Nor do I use it to pay for anything (I have no financial information nor access on it). I rarely use it to take pictures, I have a nice digital camera for that. I rarely access the internet on it, finding it more difficult to avoid all of the pop up ads on it than on my desktop computer. I don't use it to download menus at restaurants, preferring paper, and almost never scan any sort of QR code with it. I prefer to avoid all of the invasive little gremlins that now seem to come with scanning them.

In other words, I really don't take advantage of all of its capabilities. Oh well. If it were not for its texting functionality, I would be happy with an old nine pin flip phone.

I almost always have my cell in my back pocket (except when I'm sitting down) partially for that reason. If I go out in the yard (almost 6 acres), I take my cell. I'd hate to have some issue, an accident with a chainsaw or something else, that made it hard for me to get back to the house and not have my cell. On the plus side, I've occasionally seen interesting stuff that I was able to photograph and share with the family afterwards.

Exactly. I never had a pager, and I held out on the cell phone thing for years. I also hold on to my cells for years (4-7 depending).

We are showing our age here guys.

I'm the other way around. I'm one year and counting WITH a cellphone.

I've had a dumb phone but wasn't really in the habit of carrying it around with me. Here in New Zealand it's getting harder to have a land line, so I gave up and got a smartphone. Haha, much to everyone's annoyance I still don't carry it around.

Yep, I keep my old 6S charged on the work bench. Battery life is less than an hour but I'm not putting 70 bucks in it. (last I checked. Probably 100 now)

I spent over 30 years in the security industry on call 24/7/365.

At times I had multiple phones due to my own, my employer and a critical customer.

Before that multiple pagers.

When I retired I decided no communications for me anymore. No customers, no employee and no longer on the road.

I cut my ties in 2009 and only in 2020 had to sign up with a plan for the wifes new cell. There on my nightstand is the poor lonely phone all by itself only to be charged occasionally.

Plenty of time to keep busy and growing up with no cell phone I survived it than why not now.

We do keep a landline with a OOMA system due to 2 homes and OOMA carried in between and automatically switched to wifes cell while on the road.

The days of a ringing phone for someone else's panic in way behind me.

Savor the silence.

Sawyer

Amen, couldn’t have said it better!

I like land lines so much better, on so many levels.
They are real.

He is reachable. He has a land line.

What he is missing is awesome YouTube vids, Instagram and Tik Tok art that he can piss hours away on.

Here is a world class example: (skip back half)

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