an emergency. That is all i want!

Pay $10 a month for the service (calls are about $5,000 a minute...) and only ever used it in an emergency.

because I rarely make a call.

some people have their cell phone tied to them....god forbid they should miss any spam. Like you my phone is often off.....I have grown to hate spam phone calls and idiotic texts.

I answer or return calls and texts when I choose and the alarms are ones I have set for myself.

I even turn off the ringer on my landline phone. I can still hear it ringing in other rooms, but sounds like that intrude on my concentration. I don't like them. I tend to work in two-hour blocks of time, during which I am totally focused on the project I'm working on. That lets me crank out far more of my product, which is writing, than if I allow myself to be distracted.

That's how I work. Others work differently, but interruptions are not something I tolerate well when I'm actually working.

i have it on always.
Im not a slave, just an indentured servant....

I hate being so connected that people get mad if they don't get a response in 2 seconds.

have never had one, and never plan to.

Of course, I retired my watch, so if I want to know the time, I check my phone.

I also have a timer going that beeps when it's time for my meds.

I don't get so many calls or alerts for text/email that it gets super annoying, so it isn't so bad.

nothing more nothing less..no email app on it...text might get checked once a week, voice mail too...maybe
not that tethered to it

Easy to pay attention to if I want to. Easy to ignore.

Rule #1: The people in the room with me at any given time have dibs on my attention.

"I don't need a telephone, my telegraph is enough!"

"I don't need a TV, my radio is enough!"

"I don't need a smartphone, my flip phone is enough!"

I hear the last one all the time, and the person who says that the most asks me what the weather is going to be on that particular time.

I'm not fond of anti-technology threads like this because of a misunderstanding of technology.

I, too, miss the 70's, but I embrace the now because...well, THAT'S Progressive.

And I wasn't alive in the 70s

My technology is all up-to-date and always has been. I'm an early adopter and an early updater. I just don't let the technology rule my life. I refuse to do that. Technology is a tool that enables me to get more done in less time. Beyond that, it's just another tool. When I started my writing career, I had a manual typewriter. Then I had an IBM Selectric. Then I had a PC with two floppy drives. Today, I have a desktop with a dual-core processor, tablets, smart phones, notebook PCs, and even a couple of Chromebooks that rarely get used, except when I travel.

I'm about as far from being anti-technology as you can get, frankly. But, I'm the one who does the work. The technology is always just a tool that lets me get it done more efficiently. It works for me, rather than the converse.

"Advanced" technology doesn't have to be things like smart phones or electric cars.

I readily accepted compact fluorescent and then LED lighting. I'm replacing compact fluorescents with LEDs as the fluorescents fail. (We still have a few fluorescents that are fifteen to twenty years old and won't die...) To me LED lighting is advanced technology. Professors Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, the inventors of this technology, rightfully won a Nobel Prize.

Automobiles are loathsome, one of mankind's most deadly and destructive inventions. We ought to be doing everything we can to end this automobile age. If somebody gave me a Tesla I'd give it away in a heartbeat to someone who cared. Same with a smartphone. All this shit ends up as toxic waste. These are not advanced technology from my perspective. They are increasingly complex but regressive technology. (I might change my mind about smartphones if they'd quit building them as disposable consumer goods.)

The first real computer operating system I used was BSD Unix, that was in the late 'seventies. This was elegant and advanced technology and it still is. The last Microsoft product I used was Windows 98SE. Then I switched to Linux, which was like coming home. There is nothing Windows or Apple machines offer that appeals to me. Apple and Microsoft machines are maddeningly complex and bloated technologies, but they are not advanced technology. Throwing thousands of engineers at a problem doesn't make an advanced technology.

Robotic space exploration is an advanced technology. Manned deep space exploration, beyond earth's protective magnetic field, is just a stunt. We went to the moon. We know that space beyond the protection of earth's magnetic field is very hostile to human biology. What else is there to know? I'm cynical in spite of my grandfather who was one of the engineers who built the Apollo spacecraft. Some of his metal is on the moon and in the Smithsonian, but I'd much prefer all of our deep space exploration budget pay for increasingly sophisticated robots. Space belongs to our intellectual children, biological or mechanical, creatures that can walk on the martian surface naked. There's no good reason to send ordinary humans to the moon and beyond. Been there, done that.

Creating vegetarian menus that appeal to people who are not vegetarians is an advanced technology. Factory farmed pigs are not. Organic agriculture is an advanced technology. Drenching everything in herbicides and pesticides is not, especially as we watch the rapid evolution of pests and weeds to resist this kind of agriculture.

I "embrace the now" because what other choice do I have? But I don't have to tolerate the bullshit. Most new technology is bullshit that's not "progressive" in any way. That's a fundamental problem of our economic system. This thing we call "economic productivity" isn't productivity at all, it's a direct measure of the damage we are doing to earth's natural environment and our own human spirit.

I can look up train schedules and check on any transit delays, it tells me the time, it has maps, it lets me notify people if I'll be late for an appointment, and it holds a couple of emergency back-up books. But the number is given out on a need-to-know basis: immediate family, a few close friends, the organization where I volunteer, and that's about it. Everyone else can email me or call my landline and leave a message.
Lately I've gotten adicted, kinda, to Pokemon Go, but since I have an older iphone the battery only lasts for about a mile, so when I'm not near a charger I use the iphone very sparingly.

It's a tool, not a leash.

I find that gives me all the benefits without any of the annoyances when I just want people STFU.

world completely (when that's what I want), but I can still look at old texts, use the calculator, calendar, ...

And the co-creators of their graphic novel "March" and one of them said much the same thing, we are inundated with constant information--much of it stressful right now. Learn to Turn the phone off.

on deciding when I want it to assist me. If I am tied to it non-stop, I lose part of myself. All tools are technology, and can be used to extend our capabilities, but we risk giving up our independence as individuals if we rely on them too much.

While still having it abailable at all times. I have my phone with me alsmost always. I use it whenI need it or want it, and kost importantly to stay in touch with people I need to be, wherever I am. But I do not feel the need to turn it off, or isolate myself from it. But to each his own.

The folks who matter to us know the landline number.
I don't use my cell for emails or the internet.
I've never seen anything turn adults into imbeciles like smart phones.
People endanger their lives and the lives of others all damn day for an unimportant message

My computer was destroyed and I have not been able to replace it, so my phone is my lifeline, I was able to upgrade to a 6" display ZTE ZMAX Pro phablet and it is a great phone and I use it for everything. Surfing the web, including DU.

I have 144GB storage on my phone and I need to upgrade. I have all my music on my phone, 84GB worth, over 7K songs. I have all my pics and quite a few videos.

In case you have not been paying attention, the sales of computers has been falling as people transition to smartphones. That is why Apple sells phone with 256GB storage. Samsung is headed that way with the Galaxy S8. Right now you can get a 64GB unlocked Android phone, and stick a 256GB micro SD card, for a total of 320GB of storage for a price of $600.

I was one of those people who said he didn't need a smartphone, now I can't live without one.

So it is on and staying on. That said, most people do not need a cell phone, a tablet with data plan for emails is plenty.

Any outsiders who stumble upon those are blocked.

It arises from our 1989 Loma Prieta and 1994 Northridge earthquake experiences.

My wife and I both have fecund Catholic siblings who were too close to the epicenters of that shit. One of my brothers is almost PTSD about it, a gas line exploded two blocks away from his house on national news and overpasses he commuted over and under fell down. My sister in law's baby grand piano went on a rampage and crashed through a wall before two of it's legs broke off and it was crushed. Heh, my brother's got the guts of the thing hanging on his living room wall with a little hammer for anyone to make music.

Have a plan.

is the worst. I have a friend whose phone dings everytime an e-mail comes. It gets on my nerves so bad I just want to tell her to turn the damn thing off. The funny thing is that she doesn't even answer most of her e-mails.

"I don't need it (and you shouldn't either)"

I have learned something from it.

is primarily to keep in touch with my daughter 3000 miles away and occasional text alerts. I have a desktop, a laptop, and a tablet and as I am home most of time (retired), I don't need anything else. I see how many people have become slaves to their phones and they apparently cannot live without them, or so they believe.