Flip phone users of the world, unite! How many of you are out there? Nine? Ten people reading this? Well, count me in as a usually ashamed proud old school phone user who refuses to update to a smartphone. Ah, but today I've never felt better about my decision to live like it's 1997. It turns out my chances of being robbed are close to nil -- thanks to my crappy phone. A 25-year-old man was walking with a friend through Central Park in New York City when an armed robber threatened to kill him if he didn't turn over his possessions. When the man produced a flip phone, the mugger basically rolled his eyes, threw the phone back at the man in a huff, and stormed off.
I haven't remained loyal to my old phone as a matter of principle or for any lofty reason. I guess I could shell out the money to buy the latest phone. But I've been fine without one for so long that I'm convinced I'm not missing out on anything. I still manage to check email, Facebook, Twitter, and various news sites about a million times a day. If I have to drive a long distance, I actually prefer writing down directions and staying three steps ahead of wherever I am rather than following Siri's voice and having to make some wild left turn that comes out of nowhere.
Is it embarrassing when every friend at dinner pulls out her iPhone 5s and I pull out, well, nothing because why would I pull out an old phone that can't do much? Sure, sometimes! But I prefer to delude myself into thinking I'm practicing proper etiquette, when I'm honestly just being a cheapskate and am not the least bit interested in reading blogs when I'm outside of my house and trying to focus on doing other things.
All of this would be easier to get away with if my husband didn't actually have a professional relationship with Apple. Shameful, I know. Thanks to him, our house is filled with lots of pretty and sleek i-things, all of which I really like -- but use in the most basic ways. I am totally on board with the iPad and have recently begun to understand the appeal of the MacBook Air (it's a very sexy laptop). But ask me to type on a smartphone and I begin to have convulsions. It takes me 10 minutes to send a three-word text because I have to keep going back to delete my mistakes.
I may look silly with my flip phone, but my bill is hilariously low. I rarely check my phone at dinner. And now I've learned that robbers have no use for me at all. I won't be changing phones any time soon.
What kind of phone do you have? Are you careful with it when you're in public?
Image via Eliot Phillips/Flickr