OMG I'm Naked

How much do you depend on your mobile device?  I assume you have one because most people do.  Is yours a cell phone which is mostly used as a phone?  Is it a smart phone, which is used for phone, text, email, internet, music, videos and more?  Do you have it with you all the time?

I left mine at work one night recently.  I realized it when I got home and almost went back to get it.  It was such an odd feeling not having it.  I felt naked without it.

We have become so dependent on those devices that we feel disconnected without them.  I couldn’t text the two or three people I text daily, I didn’t know if they or anyone else had texted me.  I emailed them to tell them I didn’t have my phone so they wouldn’t think something bad had happened if I didn’t return their texts that night.  I mentioned it on Facebook.

Many people no longer have home phones because they use their mobile phones for everything.  I am almost one of them.  I have a home phone as part of my internet service but I don’t even know the number.  I never use it and the only calls I receive on it are from telemarketers.  No friend has the number.

Speaking of numbers, do you know anyone’s phone number anymore?  My iPhone contact list has everybody’s number and when I want to call someone, I scroll to their name on the list and push one button.  I do not know any of their numbers.  Are you old enough to remember address books and Rolodexes?  I don’t have either any more.

Telecommunications has undergone some incredible changes in the boomer years.  Growing up, we had one phone in the house, a rotary dial phone that sat on a little shelf in the wall in the hall.  Eventually a typical American house had a phone in nearly every room and often more than one phone line and number in the house.  In my earliest years a typical phone number had 6 digits rather than 7.  For the past decade, a phone call placed within large metropolitan areas with more than one area code require all 10 digits be used.

I like the convenience and versatility of smart phones but it feels just a little uncomfortable when I don’t have it with me in the same room.  It’s a little like being naked in public.