Eighth graders can't imagine life minus cell phones

Josie Miner doesn't remember a time when cell phones didn't exist.

"I remember when not a lot of people had them and they were huge (in size)," Miner said, illustrating with her hands.

.......

Even though Emily Heineman doesn't have any objections to owning or using a cell phone, sometimes having one leads to unintended rudeness, she said.

"I think it's really annoying - my sisters will answer their phone while I'm talking to them, and they'll say, 'Emily, I have to go.' I'm like, 'We were talking about something - we were doing something,'" Heineman said.

Because cell phones have become so common, people don't think twice about answering them anytime, Miner added.

"People answer cell phones all the time," she said. "So if someone is calling them and they answer, it's like no big deal."



http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NE_CELL_CRAZE_NEOL-?SITE=VARIT&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-12-19-01-30-54

Our first home computer was a Vic20, I remember when walkmen that played cassette tapes were all the rage and Atari was king of the home video game market...*sigh* and I still don't own a cell phone.

edited because Ah cain't spellll

soon after , my first BALL POINT PEN..they were so pricey, it was a birthday present..

Our home had ONE phone..in the kitchen on the wall next to the stove..

We had ONE tv in the living room, and ONE car.. (got color TV in 1966)

There were ZERO fast food places in town.. there was an eat-in Pizza Hut and a car-hop on skates drive-in place..

We had ZERO malls (until 1969)

We might have had two TV's by the time i was 9, which was 1965. I'm thinking that was when the color set came in and the old B&W went into the spare bedroom which became (of course) the TV room.

I'm quite sure we just had the one phone on the wall. Didn't have more than one phone until we moved when my parents adopted two nephews and a niece (my cousins) after their parents died. House was too small for that big a family. That house had the old "pluggable" phones with the huge plug and the four pins!

I remember how cool it was when i used my paperboy points to get a tape recorder! Little 4 inch reels and a plastic microphone. Think that was about 1966. (I think i was ten.)

We had one of the first dozen or so franchised McDonald's in our town. (That guy ended up with a territory that was so large that over 2 million people now live in it.) After about 5 years, when i was early in high school, that guy owned over 20 of them. Eventually, the corporation paid him some ridiculous amount of money to buy back the franchises and territory, so he would have less overall control over such a large market. He made TONS of money. So, we had fast food joints. (Remember Burger Chef)

But this cellphone thing is a bummer. I just don't get how we got to the point of ubiquity so quickly. I can't go anywhere without seeing a dozen people with the phone glued to their ear. Can't anyone just wait until they get home to call their friends, anymore.
The Professor

I remember feel so cool and grown-up because I'd just bought my first record - that's right, an LP. I also remember when tennis on TV was a video game - no, the only video game. I remember watching MTV for the first time and cell phones that were connected to a large case that you had to carry around. Damn, I'm so old.

Spoiled kids.

I will not let my kid have a cell phone, especially at school. Games, Text Messaging, IM, calls... yeah they need more distractions at school. Plus they generally have no respect for minutes and how much you pay for their service.

What happened to the old idea that if a kid was bad you could ground them from using the house phone? That tended to work well (especially with girls). This takes that disciplinary tool away.

Kids and Phones... No way.

Rp

It was a motorola. Not sure what the model was, but I didn't use it as much. In 1996, as a sophmore, I got a motorola starTAC. It was an analog phone, very small, and had memory for I think 20 numbers (no names). The phone, up to the beginning of my junior year, was primarily for calling my parents and such. After that, cell phones became more popular and were everywhere, and I became more reliant on using my cell phone to call friends.

I don't see a problem with giving someone in their teens a cell phone provided they understand the limits and don't abuse the privilege.

Yesterday at 2pm in a beautiful local Presbyterian Church, members of many area church choirs got together to perform Handel's Messiah, an annual thing. The orchestra was superb. The mood was reverant and professional. (You know where this is going - dont you!) There is a nice orchestral movement in the middle called the Pastoral Symphony, a lovely relaxing contrast to the robust choruses of "And the Glory of the Lord" and "And He Shall Purify." It was beautiful, especially at the end when the conductor (a college professor of about 90) brought the audience to near tears when he let the orchestra hold the final major chord extra-long and just let it die out slowly to dead silence. And then, you guessed it, an audience member's cell phone spurt forth that real jazzy Nokia-ring. The magic of the 1700s moment shattered into 21st century-reality. I wanted to go grab that cellphone and throw it in the baptismal font! But I knew that Jesus, being a man of forgiveness, would not approve such a shocking reaction. Luckily the next soprano soloist was a trooper and went right on like nothing happened.
I wanna hear Bill O'Reilly bitch about cell phones in church. I might even support him on that one.
Merry Christmas!

And I'm a young guy. Times sure have changed.

damn, why didn't I?? I hate the damn things, maybe that's why!

There are some days I wonder how I functioned without one. But that is me pondering my adult life before I got my first phone in 2002. Now it is a necessary "evil." But seriously, no kid should need one before they go off to college (and then when they do they should be responsible for paying for their own cell bill).

I remember in '99 I cut my home telephone and just carried a cell around with me. People kept asking me why I always carried a cell phone, I'm not a doctor.

Why does Captain Kirk carry a cell phone, so he can make a call when he needs to.


But I will point out that people who thought they could reach me anytime were VERY often rudely surprised as I let my voicemail take pretty much all my calls. My preferred ringer was the buzzer.

I carried a phone for MY CONVENIENCE, not the convenience of others. If it's not important enough for voicemail, it probably wasn't important enough to interrupt me.

Really, truly, honestly, I don't own a cell and never plan to. My work once offered me a cell for business, I turned them down and got the pager instead. I have never ever had a need for a cell and don't think I want to pay fifty bucks a month on top of my land-line.

I have never gotten my teenagers cell phones. My son has just bought his own, he is about 21 years old. I have found very few occasions where a cell would have helped a situation.

On the other hand, I could not live without e-mail, the internet and my high-speed cable connection.

24/7? And if people can't reach you at any time of the day with a cell, they get pissed off at you. I wonder how they managed BEFORE cell phones.

Have you seen this sight? Breakfast time at a family restaurant. Mom, Dad, and kids. Dad ignores family to talk on his cell phone as Mom and kids sit there not talking, just watching him and waiting for him to be done. Some family outing. Sometimes it's just a man and wife. He talks, she just sits (I've never seen it the other way around).

A related pet peeve I have regarding regular phones is when a store clerk answers the phone and talks for a long time while I stand there waiting to BUY STUFF FROM THEM. It's as if the phone caller got "automatic cuts" in front of me - and they're not even in the store! Urgh.


(edited for typo)

It'd be easy for them to just turn it off or not answer but they choose to be rude. I have a cell but I don't keep it on all the time...and then people get pissed off if they can't reach me anywhere anytime! It really irritates me...as if now we HAVE to be connected 24/7 or else YOU'RE being rude.

A (once was) friend of mine who I saw only once every other week would spend half the time she was over making calls to other people and answering calls, while I just kind of sat there. The thing that bothered me the most is when she would ask me a question *as* she was dialing a number, and then cut me off when the person answered. Ugh. Later on, after losing her cell phone, she stayed here for a few weeks and had a problem with how much time I sat in front of my computer- like that was getting in the way of talking to me.