Life Man spends a day without a cell phone in NYC - Page 5

Deberg_1990 · 09-26-2012, 12:45 PM

Could you go a full day without touching your cell or smartphone?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/26/opinio...html?hpt=hp_c1

There are millions of cell phone users in the United States. But one day last week, there was one less: Me.

My CNN editors asked me to participate in an experiment where I won't use my cell phone for one whole day. I thought: How hard could it be? I know many of you, like myself, are old enough to remember America B.C., as in "Before Cell phones." We made it through just fine.

So off I went into the streets of New York City sans a cell phone. At first, I felt liberated, like Neo in "The Matrix" when he took the red pill and could finally see the "real world."

Instead of texting or checking my e-mail, I began to actually look at the people I was sharing the streets with. It truly resembled a movie set filled with extras from all walks of life. A beautiful woman walked quickly past me while fixing her make up. Asian tourists were busy snapping photos. A businessman looked busy talking on his phone. A group of Hasidic men were kibitzing while an Arab man sold falafel from a cart.

It was truly exhilarating. For about 14 or 15 minutes or so. After that, I began to worry: What if someone needs to reach me? What if there is an important message waiting for me?

Being a stand up comedian, I run a unique small business. I'm not only president of my company; I'm also the only product. While I have an agent, I still need to be able to respond quickly to certain booking offers or just move on to the next comic opportunity.

I soon began to feel phantom cell phone vibrations in the front left pocket of my jeans where my phone usually resides. My stress level started to escalate. I had to check my voice mail. But doing so would require me to engage in an activity I had not done for many years: Use a payphone.

While there's no short supply of pay phones in the Big Apple, there's apparently no one charged with cleaning them. The pay phones I saw looked and smelled like homeless people had confused them for bathrooms or had used them to clean certain parts of their anatomy.

Despite the stench, I held my breath and made my call to retrieve my messages. How many did I have? Zero. This instantly took me back to memories of life in B.C. America when I would call my answering machine to retrieve messages and often be met with the (gleeful) robotic voice stating, "You have no new messages."

While relieved, my anxiety over my unchecked emails began to ratchet up. Please keep in mind I'm a NYC comedian. I'm hyper neurotic by nature.

I needed to find an Internet café. Sounds simple enough. But it's not. While establishments offering free Wi-Fi are everywhere, venues with computer terminals to use are not.

I began walking the streets asking people if they had seen an Internet café, like I was searching for my lost dog. The responses ranged from "no," to odd looks like I was a time traveler from the 1990s, to offers of stories on unrelated topics. (One man had no idea where an Internet café was located but enthusiastically suggested a great Turkish restaurant that I should check out.)

Fourteen blocks, two avenues and 45 minutes later, I finally observed a sign outside a slightly run-down deli that read, "Internet." And there I saw three computer terminals, whose best days were clearly behind them, available for rent at the reasonable rate of $2 for 12 minutes.

So what e-mails had I missed? Nothing pressing, to be honest. They all could have waited until I returned home.

As my cell phoneless day continued, I began to wonder: Would we actually talk to each other more if we weren't so attached to our gadgets? Would we be better people without our cell phones distracting us so often? Better spouses? Better sons or daughters?

But I also realized that without my cell phone, I felt unconnected to my friends, my business, and the world. I began to feel lonely in the most crowded city in America.

Riding the subway home later that day, and without my beloved baseball game to play on my phone, I had time to really look around the subway car. And there I made a startling discovery: I had never read the emergency evacuation sign posted in each subway car. That knowledge could very well save my life one day.

My experiment without a cell phone taught me two valuable lessons. One, my cell phone is not just a piece of technology; it is like Linus' security blanket in the "Peanuts" comic strip. Without it, I felt less comfortable. Less confident. I felt alone.

And two, in case of fire in the subway, don't panic. Wait for instructions from the train conductor. Help is on the way.

Dayze · 09-27-2012, 07:25 AM

no problem.
it would be a relief

**Rausch** · 09-27-2012, 07:57 AM

Never owned a cell phone - never will.

I wouldn't have a home phone if work didn't require it...

**luv** · 09-27-2012, 07:59 AM

Just spent five days without a cell phone OR internet last week.

Graystoke · 09-27-2012, 08:07 AM

Got back from Trout Fishing Wyoming last week. Didn't have service for a week, and the only thing I missed was making sure everyone back home was ok.
Other then that I didn't miss it a bit

Fish · 09-27-2012, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

We have two Voip lines because we don't get even close to a solid cell reception in our home. Plus, I like having a wireless phone in nearly every room. I'd lose my cell and miss an important calls for one reason or another.

All of this and more. I can't imagine not having a cell in Los Angeles and I don't think I've forgotten to take my cell with me when I leave the house in over a decade.

I would venture to guess that's a big part of the reason why you have problems with your battery life on your phone. It sounds like you're in a location where your phone is constantly searching for a network, or possibly right between 2 different networks. That really overworks your phone. When your phone can't consistently stay on one network, it usually works itself twice as hard. I bet if you switched carriers, you'd notice an improvement with the same phone...

Inspector · 09-27-2012, 10:00 AM

I have a few phones but they are all connected by a wire to the phone jacks in my house. Some have rotary dials.

I get along just fine. Don't miss what I never had.

Inspector · 09-27-2012, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HemiEd

Do any of you still have land lines?

That is our issue, we got rid of ours about three years ago.

Yes. They are free.

Man, I love free.

Frosty · 09-27-2012, 10:06 AM

We only have a land line because our ISP/phone company requires it to have their DSL. Otherwise, I'd be saving the $25/month.

suds79 · 09-27-2012, 10:10 AM

I have days where I don't use my phone at all.

While I do have online access with it, it's not that great.

I once thought about upgrading and getting a smart phone but then realized why? So I can check work emails anytime? Awesome. Can't wait to do that.

So I can browse the web on a 4 inch screen? Nah I think In can wait until I get home or at work.

If I'm out and about and need to look up a location or phone # to a place I can do that but other then that? Not really needed IMO.

In short, completing this experiment would be all to easy for me.

vailpass · 09-27-2012, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Otter

It's a tourist trap but it's a tourist trap 10 minutes away from God's land in every direction. Someone has to bring in the bucks.

I was just kidding. Durango is God's country. The Strater is as good a place to stay as you could want. Silverton is God's country as well.

**DaneMcCloud** · 09-27-2012, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KC Fish

I would venture to guess that's a big part of the reason why you have problems with your battery life on your phone. It sounds like you're in a location where your phone is constantly searching for a network, or possibly right between 2 different networks. That really overworks your phone. When your phone can't consistently stay on one network, it usually works itself twice as hard. I bet if you switched carriers, you'd notice an improvement with the same phone...

I'm sure you're right. But we just signed with Sprint in January with the employee rate and we really didn't get "great" reception in our home with T-Mobile. Verizon was even worse.

"Supposedly", Sprint is aware that their network sucks and plan to upgrade it soon in Los Angeles. We'll see...

vailpass · 09-27-2012, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I'm sure you're right. But we just signed with Sprint in January with the employee rate and we really didn't get "great" reception in our home with T-Mobile. Verizon was even worse.

"Supposedly", Sprint is aware that their network sucks and plan to upgrade it soon in Los Angeles. We'll see...

They've been telling us that in Phoenix for 10 years. We don't even have 4G FFS. They used to charge us $10/month for each smart phone as a "4G surcharge" even though we don't have it. One day it changed to a "data surcharge".
We have 4 4G phones and 1 LTE phone but no 4G/LTE service.

Still, I like Sprint and haven't changed. Best all-in-one data plan out there.

Kerberos · 09-27-2012, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I'm sure you're right. But we just signed with Sprint in January with the employee rate and we really didn't get "great" reception in our home with T-Mobile. Verizon was even worse.

"Supposedly", Sprint is aware that their network sucks and plan to upgrade it soon in Los Angeles. We'll see...

Dane

If you have issues with signal inside the house then you might want to call Sprint Customer Support and ask for a Airvanna that hooks through your home network and boosts signal to your cell phone.

I works pretty good.

My wife and I went back to Sprint for our Cell phones and inside the house we got no signal and is was so weak it kept dropping calls.

After an hour with customer support I told them I wanted out of my contract if they couldn't give me better support inside my home. They agreed to send me this free of charge... setting it up is a whole other story about how crappy tier1 support is for Sprint. Tier 2 will at least listen to you.

**DaneMcCloud** · 09-27-2012, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kerberos

Dane

If you have issues with signal inside the house then you might want to call Sprint Customer Support and ask for a Airvanna that hooks through your home network and boosts signal to your cell phone.

I works pretty good.

My wife and I went back to Sprint for our Cell phones and inside the house we got no signal and is was so weak it kept dropping calls.

After an hour with customer support I told them I wanted out of my contract if they couldn't give me better support inside my home. They agreed to send me this free of charge... setting it up is a whole other story about how crappy tier1 support is for Sprint. Tier 2 will at least listen to you.

Thanks, Dude. They actually sent me one back in January but it was cancelling the signal from my wireless router and wireless boosters throughout the house. Sprint support was awful, so it's boxed up and sitting in the garage.

I'll ask for Tier 2 support when I get a chance.

Kerberos · 09-27-2012, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Thanks, Dude. They actually sent me one back in January but it was cancelling the signal from my wireless router and wireless boosters throughout the house. Sprint support was awful, so it's boxed up and sitting in the garage.

I'll ask for Tier 2 support when I get a chance.

Actually I had the same problem that if you hook this thing up the way THEY tell you to it wouldn't pass traffic to my home router and Tier 1 tried telling me it was on Cox's side.

I told tier 1 till I was blue in the face that my home network was fine till I hooked up their box the way it was in the instructions. I twas NOT a Cox problem but their units problem. It won't pass traffic to your home network.

Well long story short... If you didn't try to hook this thing up DIRECTLY to your router or home network interface and turn it on.....that is what I would try if I were you.

Once it came up (took like an hour for the GPS pinpoint it's location) it works great and my home network is unaffected by the booster.

Hope this helps.

09-26-2012, 12:45 PM
Deberg_1990 In Search of a Life Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: San Antonio Tx. Casino cash: $3914454	Man spends a day without a cell phone in NYC Could you go a full day without touching your cell or smartphone? http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/26/opinio...html?hpt=hp_c1 There are millions of cell phone users in the United States. But one day last week, there was one less: Me. My CNN editors asked me to participate in an experiment where I won't use my cell phone for one whole day. I thought: How hard could it be? I know many of you, like myself, are old enough to remember America B.C., as in "Before Cell phones." We made it through just fine. So off I went into the streets of New York City sans a cell phone. At first, I felt liberated, like Neo in "The Matrix" when he took the red pill and could finally see the "real world." Instead of texting or checking my e-mail, I began to actually look at the people I was sharing the streets with. It truly resembled a movie set filled with extras from all walks of life. A beautiful woman walked quickly past me while fixing her make up. Asian tourists were busy snapping photos. A businessman looked busy talking on his phone. A group of Hasidic men were kibitzing while an Arab man sold falafel from a cart. It was truly exhilarating. For about 14 or 15 minutes or so. After that, I began to worry: What if someone needs to reach me? What if there is an important message waiting for me? Being a stand up comedian, I run a unique small business. I'm not only president of my company; I'm also the only product. While I have an agent, I still need to be able to respond quickly to certain booking offers or just move on to the next comic opportunity. I soon began to feel phantom cell phone vibrations in the front left pocket of my jeans where my phone usually resides. My stress level started to escalate. I had to check my voice mail. But doing so would require me to engage in an activity I had not done for many years: Use a payphone. While there's no short supply of pay phones in the Big Apple, there's apparently no one charged with cleaning them. The pay phones I saw looked and smelled like homeless people had confused them for bathrooms or had used them to clean certain parts of their anatomy. Despite the stench, I held my breath and made my call to retrieve my messages. How many did I have? Zero. This instantly took me back to memories of life in B.C. America when I would call my answering machine to retrieve messages and often be met with the (gleeful) robotic voice stating, "You have no new messages." While relieved, my anxiety over my unchecked emails began to ratchet up. Please keep in mind I'm a NYC comedian. I'm hyper neurotic by nature. I needed to find an Internet café. Sounds simple enough. But it's not. While establishments offering free Wi-Fi are everywhere, venues with computer terminals to use are not. I began walking the streets asking people if they had seen an Internet café, like I was searching for my lost dog. The responses ranged from "no," to odd looks like I was a time traveler from the 1990s, to offers of stories on unrelated topics. (One man had no idea where an Internet café was located but enthusiastically suggested a great Turkish restaurant that I should check out.) Fourteen blocks, two avenues and 45 minutes later, I finally observed a sign outside a slightly run-down deli that read, "Internet." And there I saw three computer terminals, whose best days were clearly behind them, available for rent at the reasonable rate of $2 for 12 minutes. So what e-mails had I missed? Nothing pressing, to be honest. They all could have waited until I returned home. As my cell phoneless day continued, I began to wonder: Would we actually talk to each other more if we weren't so attached to our gadgets? Would we be better people without our cell phones distracting us so often? Better spouses? Better sons or daughters? But I also realized that without my cell phone, I felt unconnected to my friends, my business, and the world. I began to feel lonely in the most crowded city in America. Riding the subway home later that day, and without my beloved baseball game to play on my phone, I had time to really look around the subway car. And there I made a startling discovery: I had never read the emergency evacuation sign posted in each subway car. That knowledge could very well save my life one day. My experiment without a cell phone taught me two valuable lessons. One, my cell phone is not just a piece of technology; it is like Linus' security blanket in the "Peanuts" comic strip. Without it, I felt less comfortable. Less confident. I felt alone. And two, in case of fire in the subway, don't panic. Wait for instructions from the train conductor. Help is on the way.
Posts: 66,914

09-27-2012, 07:25 AM	#61
Dayze Resident Glue Sniffer Join Date: Nov 2003 Casino cash: $5189358	no problem. it would be a relief
Posts: 37,360

09-27-2012, 07:59 AM	#63
luv MY LITTLE #15 Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Springfield, MO Casino cash: $6239600	Just spent five days without a cell phone OR internet last week.
Posts: 63,427

09-27-2012, 08:07 AM	#64
Graystoke MVP Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Driftless Region Casino cash: $935564	Got back from Trout Fishing Wyoming last week. Didn't have service for a week, and the only thing I missed was making sure everyone back home was ok. Other then that I didn't miss it a bit
Posts: 8,700

09-27-2012, 10:00 AM	#66
Inspector MVP Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: K.C. Casino cash: $9924975	I have a few phones but they are all connected by a wire to the phone jacks in my house. Some have rotary dials. I get along just fine. Don't miss what I never had.
Posts: 7,907

09-27-2012, 10:06 AM	#68
Frosty Go Beavers! Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Warshington Casino cash: $5688243	We only have a land line because our ISP/phone company requires it to have their DSL. Otherwise, I'd be saving the $25/month.
Posts: 14,495

09-27-2012, 10:10 AM	#69
suds79 MVP Join Date: Sep 2000 Casino cash: $10005036	I have days where I don't use my phone at all. While I do have online access with it, it's not that great. I once thought about upgrading and getting a smart phone but then realized why? So I can check work emails anytime? Awesome. Can't wait to do that. So I can browse the web on a 4 inch screen? Nah I think In can wait until I get home or at work. If I'm out and about and need to look up a location or phone # to a place I can do that but other then that? Not really needed IMO. In short, completing this experiment would be all to easy for me.
Posts: 5,747