Telephone

Recently, when I pulled out my cell phone to check the time my 4-year-old daughter said, "phones can do so many things - you can talk on them and see what time it is..." She is, quite possibly, the only person I know who's impressed with what my cell-phone can do. Everyone else makes fun of me for having such a 'lame' phone, and tries to convince me to get a blackberry - or better yet, an iphone.

But I think a phone should be a phone. (Not that I haven't been grateful to be able to take a photo when I didn't have a camera around, and I do use the 'texting' function sometimes... ) But the thought of being 'better connected' (read: more accessible) gives me the creeps. I'm already more 'connected' than I want to be... I can be reached on my cell at almost any time. Do I really need to be able to get e-mails 24 hours a day, too? It's not like I need to have more quality time on the internet. Surfing the web is entertaining for sure, but it's really not what I want to be doing when I'm at the park with my daughter. Or out to dinner with my husband. (Although, I suppose it would give me something to do when he's checking his e-mail at the table....)

It's not so much that I think phones shouldn't be able to do other things - it's just that I shouldn't own them if they can - because it makes it that much harder for me to experience the present moment. So, while I think the iphone is absolutely amazing, I don't want to have one. I know if I did I'd probably be so absorbed that I'd stop paying attention to the people around me altogether... (and not just when the phone rings.)