Rant 8 - 8/1/12 Subject: My dependence on my phone

Rant number 8


Somewhere between Friday evening and Saturday night - my phone has buggered itself. In itself, this is not a huge problem to me.

My phone (a HTC desire,) has been a moderate & ever increasing disappointment. My phone you see, is a microcosm of the modern world. It tries to look good, it tries to impress, it tries to do everything and - in most of the ways that matter it does just that.

The issue is, everything that isn't that most, is in fact, the stuff that matters.

From the very beginning for instance, it's battery life has been a point of constant annoyance.

Talk about fatal bloody flaw! 

The phone can play videos, music, deal with ebooks and word documents, play games and entertain me in myriad different ways. It has a touch screen which works pretty well and a great big pretty screen.

But I can't use it (even when my phone works) much. Because I might occasionally have to use it as a phone - and the battery is bound to be dead when I try.

It's also slow, laggy, cheaply manufactured (thus the brokeness) out of inappropriate materials, and switches itself off for a variety of reasons that are of a complete mystery.

You get the idea

To get back on track to my point however, I need to confess something about my phone:-
It drives me round the bend, it's just not that good

but

I cannot live without the bloody thing!

None of us can you see. 

In the last 15 years or so, a mobile phone has gone from being a mere method of communication to a multi-media, camera, music playing, all singing, all dancing, social networking wonder device. This is great in some ways, it really is - but leaves us so dependent on our little rectangular companions. 

In turn -nearly all of us have let other devices fall by the wayside - a loss that we only feel when the unimaginable happens.

To give you it in context:-

I use my phone to wake me in the morning - so have no other form of alarm clock

I use my phone to take pictures ad hoc - so I don't have to carry my camera everywhere

I use my phone to play music when I'm out and about - so I don't need to carry an MP3

I use my phone to keep up with social networks - so I don't have to carry a computer

I use my phone to keep in touch wife my wife - my family and my friends, so I don't have to carry around around a kg of pocket change.

I even use it to keep up with my blog!

In short - at the moment I feel a little bit naked. What if someone wants to call me at this moment!? How do I wake up in the morning!? How will be able to google random things to amuse myself!?

When on earth did my phone become such an appendage to me. It's not like I've lost my spleen is it!?

My own dependence puts me to shame!

Rant over.