Mobile phones, anyone else who doesn't need one?

[Deleted member 77746]

Nowadays it almost feels rude to knock on someone's door without calling them first.

Don't care.

 

[Hades]

Don't care.

My wife seems unable to ignore someone knocking on the door or calling her phone. If I'm too busy I just say I don't have time to answer it. But she simply can't ignore someone at the door.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

My wife seems unable to ignore someone knocking on the door or calling her phone. If I'm too busy I just say I don't have time to answer it. But she simply can't ignore someone at the door.

I used to be the same but ignore everyone these days. If I don't want to do something I won't.

 

[Lopéz]

How did people cope before the internet and chatting to random on said internet? what did we used to do before?

John : Go out to play football after work?
Me : Yep, I'll come to yours for 5
Walk to John's house (~1 hour)
Knock door
Nobody home
Walk home (~1 hour)

Next day
Me : WTF we were supposed to be playing football
John : Sorry, my mum picked me up from the school bus stop because she needed to take me shopping for new school uniform
Me : GREAT

 

[Lysander]

Arranged to meet up with people at a specific date and time and if you were late then... well, you were late and they had probably left that location. If you missed the meetup time with your mates at the pub then you had to wander around their usual haunts to try and fine them.

I remember the moment I realised that mobile phones were going to change the way we met for good.

In the late '90s I had arranged to meet my gf at a certain time in Hyde Park. Mobiles were still a relatively specialised item. I had only just got one, and she didn't have one [she was actually quite critical of my having one, since she thought it was pretentious].

She was late, and I waited and waited, and she hadn't shown up. The phone rang, and the display said her name, which could mean only one thing, she was at home, which was a good hour away. She said she didn't feel that well, and wouldn't be able to come [I can't remember what the exact reason was, but it was something minor].

Knowing her as well as I did, I knew that previously to my getting the phone, she would have made the effort to come anyway. But since I had one, she didn't have to. Mobiles meant that people could change their plans on a whim rather than make an effort.

Nowadays you can meet up with people in minutes, cancel on people in minutes, in fact a lot of meetings are just dynamic, which is both good and bad.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

As the title I just don't see the point in owning one for myself, I'm either busy at work and it would be stuck in my locker ( don't get me started on young ones in work checking there twitter )
If i'm not at work i'm at home or out somewhere where I don't really want to stop what i'm doing to answer a phone call.
I don't really know what i'm asking tbh, I suppose I'm asking why should I get one?

I have a mobile its quite handy no one except my mother calls me on the landline its largely a concession for work though what I don't have is a smartphone (oh the horror. They can pay for it they want me to shell out for one of those).

I have a pay as you go Nokia 6.1 on Tesco Mobile (triple credit) but really only use it for online banking, 2FA and the odd text. To show how little I use it I stuck a tenner on it at Christmas and still have £2.78 remaining.

I pay a tenner every three months you're doing better than me.

 

[Hades]

I have a mobile its quite handy no one except my mother calls me on the landline what I don't have is a smartphone (oh the horror)

But, but, how will NHS track and trace be able to ping you unnecessarily????

 

[Blackjack Davy]

Wasn't it better when we only had the 3-4 tv channel and it was easier to settle on one show, today we have so many channel that we spend most of the night channel hopping not watching anything.
Like having 200+ music CD's or DVD's and not knowing what to watch or listen to

Theres only so much content worth watching, I find now its just spread out very thinly over a lot of channels instead of being concentrated in a few. And adverts adverts and more adverts (10 minutes of adverts 5 minutes before the hour when the programme starts, 5 minutes past the hour adverts start again...)

I sometimes think channel choice is an illusion its simply an opportunity to get more advertisers to sign up and extract more revenue

At first, probably yes.

Today, the UI on a lot of devices is unbelievably poor, confusing and inconsistent. I know loads of people who cannot for the life of them figure out how to use Sky, etc, and find modern remotes far too complex and confusing.

And I must say I sympathise. There is so much awful UI design in modern electronics and modern remotes aren't simple or easy for a lot of people.

I bought a phone recently specifically marketed at older people, claiming to be easy to use. Like **** it was. I could use it, but when I did I immediately noticed how buttons would do one thing in one place, and something completely different in another place, and there is absolutely no thought put into how to make these things consistent and obvious.

UI is cluttered unnecesarily theres too much reliance on technology case in the point the car theres umpteen buttons and menus to go through just to change the bloomin' clock gone are the days when it was a cocktail stick in the dash you twisted left or right

Whats even more amusing is "when I were a lad" grandpa's old valve radio or the TV set you had to wait for it to "warm up" till the sound/picture arrived, our generation had transistor radios that started instantly (great, we thought) but these days everything has an OS that requires time for boot up so you're back to waiting for it come to life again, its gone full circle

You can watch pro's in tournaments. I like it for csgo tournaments. I also like to watch flom play when I can't play myself or if I want to learn maps. By watching a high level player you can learn to get better. It's like why would you watch a pro chef cook food? Why do people watch master chef? why do people watch football? why do people watch tennis?

Sometimes entertainment, sometimes learning, sometimes just because you like to. I do it from an entertainment and learning perspective. Some streamers are quite funny.

Its a handy way to try games out and see if you might be interested or not was watching someone quite well known playing Fallout 76 I decided it probably wasn't something I would be interested in buying though the graphics look decent I had no idea what it looked/felt like previously.

 

[Mellowfellow]

I do use it for Google and YouTube and email for job applications and online banking I don't have a computer at home and I don't work in an office.
Very rarely call people it's more for emergencies and if I have applied for jobs.
I'll occasionally have a day, usually a Sunday, where I switch it off so no one rings me.

 

[413x]

Need mine.
Apart from the usual banking, easy access etc. It's also very important for me.

Out on my bike/kayak if I got into trouble without it.. Well, could be dead easily.

So yeah. Need mine.

 

[rodders]

I use mine for loads of things, it would be annoying not having it. It's great at work for quick snaps of information, identification plates for instance.
Banking on a phone is great, especially as so many local branches are closing.
It's just so versatile, do I spend too much time on it for pointless things too, well yes, but don't most of us lol.

 

[Gerard]

I have one but the phone side of things is rarely used, only time i ever call anyone really is for dr\dentist appointment, and as far as receiving calls it's mostly to pick stuff up on the way home if i'm out.

 

[FoxEye]

Its a handy way to try games out and see if you might be interested or not was watching someone quite well known playing Fallout 76 I decided it probably wasn't something I would be interested in buying though the graphics look decent I had no idea what it looked/felt like previously.

Funnily enough I watch people playing games that I absolutely have no interest in playing myself.

They tend to be retro games, like really, really old tho. From the original Castlevania to some old Atari 2600 game.

I view it as kind of a history lesson. I'm not going to play something that old, when I have a Steam backlog in the low thousands But it's interesting to watch people complete these old games in 30 mins or so.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Theres only so much content worth watching, I find now its just spread out very thinly over a lot of channels instead of being concentrated in a few. And adverts adverts and more adverts (10 minutes of adverts 5 minutes before the hour when the programme starts, 5 minutes past the hour adverts start again...)

I sometimes think channel choice is an illusion its simply an opportunity to get more advertisers to sign up and extract more revenue



UI is cluttered unnecesarily theres too much reliance on technology case in the point the car theres umpteen buttons and menus to go through just to change the bloomin' clock gone are the days when it was a cocktail stick in the dash you twisted left or right

Whats even more amusing is "when I were a lad" grandpa's old valve radio or the TV set you had to wait for it to "warm up" till the sound/picture arrived, our generation had transistor radios that started instantly (great, we thought) but these days everything has an OS that requires time for boot up so you're back to waiting for it come to life again, its gone full circle



Its a handy way to try games out and see if you might be interested or not was watching someone quite well known playing Fallout 76 I decided it probably wasn't something I would be interested in buying though the graphics look decent I had no idea what it looked/felt like previously.

I would have used YouTube for that personally. It's better as the video will have been edited a stream might be just going through a specific part or doing boring stuff.

 

[Deleted User 298457]

Funnily enough I watch people playing games that I absolutely have no interest in playing myself.

They tend to be retro games, like really, really old tho. From the original Castlevania to some old Atari 2600 game.

I view it as kind of a history lesson. I'm not going to play something that old, when I have a Steam backlog in the low thousands But it's interesting to watch people complete these old games in 30 mins or so.

Give the 8bit guy a go if you haven't already.

 

[GR63]

UI/UX design these days is all about how stuff looks and rarely how it works.

Yes, SkyQ pretty UI but no Reminders and have to record everything... We sent it back

 

[ttaskmaster]

You could say that about everything in your list.
For example I don't need a compass. So its pretty useless to me 100% of the time.

If you don't need an actual compass, you wouldn't need the smartphone either, though.
Having a tool you'll never need anyway is not the same as having one that just doesn't do the job well enough.

Agreed, but if you broke down halfway between two of those phones, in torrential rain and at -2c,
I bet that you’d wish that you had a mobile phone then.

You're supposed to exit the vehicle and stand a safe distance from it and any passing traffic anyway, so the conditions make no difference.
As for the phone, it's only a half-mile walk away. Besides, you may be in the middle of nowhere with no signal, or have had an accident in which your mobile got broken.
Either way, the need and reasons for backup options persist.

but wasn’t it so much easier when remotes became available?

Just one more thing that gets lost and uses up yet more batteries...

How did people cope before the internet and chatting to random on said internet? what did we used to do before?

Well, there's this thing called a pub....

 

[Von Luck]

Do I need a phone? No. Does it make my life far easier in a many ways? Yes.

Had a mobile since 1994 and a smartphone since 2010, but it's probably the last 5 or 6 years that it's really become an amazing tool.

Free, always up to date satnav with live traffic and rerouting.
Encrypted password store and 2FA that only needs a fingerprint to unlock.
Torch, calculator, camera - all of which can be bettered by standalone items, but who wants to carry those around all the time?

I've got two nice cameras but rarely use them now as phone cameras meet 99% of my needs. I might dig one out if I need to use a bounce flash, but that's about it.

If I'm hunting for the cat in the back garden, then sure I'll go and get my powerful LED torch, but most of the time I just need enough illumination to peer down the back of a sofa, or under my car and my phone does that perfectly.

Checking the weather - sure you can look out the window, but that doesn't tell you what the weather's going to be like in 2hrs at the place you're travelling to.

Group messaging is another biggie. All my different friend groups organise meets and outings via Signal or WhatsApp now. The idea of having to individually contact each person seems preposterous.

 

[Graetzbridge]

Do I need a phone? No. Does it make my life far easier in a many ways? Yes.

Had a mobile since 1994 and a smartphone since 2010, but it's probably the last 5 or 6 years that it's really become an amazing tool.

Free, always up to date satnav with live traffic and rerouting.
Encrypted password store and 2FA that only needs a fingerprint to unlock.
Torch, calculator, camera - all of which can be bettered by standalone items, but who wants to carry those around all the time?

I've got two nice cameras but rarely use them now as phone cameras meet 99% of my needs. I might dig one out if I need to use a bounce flash, but that's about it.

If I'm hunting for the cat in the back garden, then sure I'll go and get my powerful LED torch, but most of the time I just need enough illumination to peer down the back of a sofa, or under my car and my phone does that perfectly.

Checking the weather - sure you can look out the window, but that doesn't tell you what the weather's going to be like in 2hrs at the place you're travelling to.

Group messaging is another biggie. All my different friend groups organise meets and outings via Signal or WhatsApp now. The idea of having to individually contact each person seems preposterous.

Yes, all the above for you and others. Not for me. Business, travel and social was a huge life of my life for 50 years. Now I just don't want the hustle and bustle. I like walking with my dog and another. - gentle company in the woods and fields.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Torch, calculator, camera - all of which can be bettered by standalone items, but who wants to carry those around all the time?

I certainly carry the torch, as it's pretty small (2½") and takes up far less pocket space than a phone. I also carry a Swiss Army knife and a small first aid kit.
However, I'm amazed at how those critical of "how much junk" I carry are also the ones with massive bunches of keys and huge bulgy wallets...

Horses for courses.

Checking the weather - sure you can look out the window, but that doesn't tell you what the weather's going to be like in 2hrs at the place you're travelling to.

Do you know of any weather apps (or websites) that are actually accurate, though? Most seem to just recycle data from the Met Office, which is about as accurate as asking Chris Roberts when his latest game is going to be released...