Moving to phone freedom

I admit it. I am a smart phone convert. For years, I snubbed technology. Well, not snubbed so much. Snubbed implies that I wanted nothing to do with it. My acceptance of technology was slow and cautious, like a cartoon mouse discovering a free wheel of cheese.

I kept a landline for about a year after I got my first cellphone. When I finally disconnected it, more out of thriftiness than practicality, I harbored an impending sense of dread. I had a fear of missing an important call or being cut off from the world if, by some chance, all cell reception went away and I was confined to my house.

But soon after the anxiety passed, I found new freedom in my wireless life. In fact I rather quickly transitioned from a regular cellphone to a camera phone. A few years earlier this combination would have been impractical at best. A camera on a house phone was possible; however, it would have left the user with a pretty limited subject matter. But now, it almost seemed a necessity. In the early 2000s, it was almost impossible to get through a casual conversation without pulling out your phone and sharing a blurry, tiny picture with the person with whom you were talking.

Riding the crest of the technology wave -- or so I thought -- I paid little attention to the subtle upgrades that cropped up around me. I even changed my plan to 1,000 text messages a month. That's 1,000 LOL's, OMG's, and TTYL's that I had available at my fingertips each month.

I thought I was ahead of the curve but quicker than one can type a frown face emoticon -- :( -- I learned I was behind. Blackberrys and iPhones had moved to the forefront of the mobile stage and my camera phone was subject to ridicule and Saved by The Bell comparisons every time I flipped it open.

"Who you calling? Slater?" was a common jeer from a stooped-over smart-phone user, looking up from their awesome phone long enough to belittle me.

The snobbery of the smartphoners jilted me and, instead of joining them, I wanted no part of them. Besides, I didn't really like either of the two platforms. Blackberry seemed too bulky and business-minded and the whole Mac thing really irked me. Macintosh began with a hammer throw in the face of society, claiming not to be "The Man."

But over the years, and especially now (the "if you don't have an iPhone" campaign especially riles me) "The Man" has used the guise of popular music, cool apps, black sweaters and blue jeans to take over and convince an entire army of non-conformists to conform.

But, enough ranting. The point is, I held out for a long time. When the Android came out, my interest was piqued, but I clung to my camera phone. I kept with the argument that a phone is a phone and a computer is a computer, and there was no need to intertwine the two.

I suppose it was Angry Birds that eventually led to me closing my flip phone for good. I played the game on my brother's phone and was instantly hooked, and with no other access to the game I was forced to seek out and purchase a phone much smarter than any phones I've ever owned.

Settled on the EVO from Sprint, which at the time of writing this article is the best phone on the market. If you can't tell from that last sentence, I have also become a smartphone snob, and I will probably laugh at you if you have an inferior phone, especially if it is a Zack Morris phone.

In retrospect, it's hard to believe I waited so long. A smartphone means having the world in your pocket at all times -- or at least when you have service. It means never being lost again, always knowing the current scores of games, start times of movies and status updates of friends.

But there is a downside as well. I've been a part of many social scenes and found myself in a smartphone circle: a silent group of friends, bent over their phones, socializing with the world but not each other.

I now get angry if the weather doesn't sync on my phone and a sun shows up in the display when it should clearly be a sun with clouds. There are many other little ways smartphones have changed our lives -- I'll never throw someone in a pool again for fear of having to shell out several hundred dollars.

For the most part, I think it's for the better.

TTYL.

* E-mail Jesse Wright at jesse.wright@theeagle.com.