Do You Own Your Electronic Device or Does It Own You?

[wyome]

My phone owns me...I allow it to happen...oh well

[buffalobo]

I carry two phones. Work and personal. Am owned by work phone during business hours. Personal phone is used to talk and text wife, read here, weather and news alerts and Kindle reading app. COAR15 is the only "social" media I participate in.

[hurley842002]

I find it ironic how often the "no phone" crowd is on this forum, which means they are tethered to a stationary computer, I on the other hand use my "dumb" phone for literally everything, and being a mobile device, means I can do everything anywhere. I remember having to sit in front of a computer to browse the web, no thank you, computers are pretty much word processors for me anymore.

[pickenup]

I do not own a smart phone. It does not work at my house, so why?
I do own a flip phone for travel, and it has never been connected to the internet.
For $6 to buy the phone and $6 a month to keep it active, I figure that is good insurance.

Now my son practically lives on his.
Knowing it does not work when visiting us, he still can't help but look at it ever few minutes.

[cstone]

I’m here reading this on the iPhone that was issued to me. This means that I am not exactly present for anyone or anything that may be physically present near me. Everything seems to be in a competition for my attention and I confess that screens often win.

I plead guilty your honor.

[Zundfolge]

For $6 to buy the phone and $6 a month to keep it active, I figure that is good insurance.

Main reason I don't have a phone is that I'm cheap, but $6/mo doesn't sound bad ... where you get that deal?

[BushMasterBoy]

my phone costs about 80 bucks a year. It is a flashlight and a FM radio too. I has really large buttons and is fairly small. It will text, but I rarely text. I have to add minutes every 90 days. It scrolls on the screen how many days are left and how many minutes are left. You can subscribe one time for a whole year if you wish. I got the phone at wally world and usually add minutes via my computer.maybe one day I will get a smart phone...

It is from tracfone.

https://www.tracfone.com/?lang=en

[roberth]

The quoted clip seems way overblown and needlessly dramatic to me. Yes people have control issues with respect to device usage and manners. That doesn't make anyone a robot or slave to the device by any means.

Yes, I thought it was overblown too until I started seeing people walking into the can with their stupidphone in one hand and trying to unzip/juggle their winkus with the other hand WHILE continuing to text, then they walk up to the wash basin and do all of that one-handed while texting, can't even put it down for a minute.

[Irving]

People filming every damn thing they go to is extremely irritating to me. I was at a concert and half the people were holding up phones. I bet 99% of them will never watch or show that video again, and 100% of the people shown that video won't even care.

[Ah Pook]

I'd say I own it. My base plan is 2 gig a month. I use less than 1 gig. I don't text or talk in the car. Never on the table when I'm eating or talking to someone.

Don't approach me with a question while your yacking on your phone. You won't get a favorable response. I do like watching people drop everything to answer a call or text.