Okay – this post in Newsweek really made me sit up and take notice. It’s some grumpy old journalist muttering ‘A Cellphone? Never for me’. Complaining about all the noise pollution and the lack of privacy that owning a cellphone entails. Oh, the horror of self-recognition!



You see, I am the last remaining Aucklander without a mobile phone. I did own one once. Briefly. It was the early – mid 1990s. My son jokes that I had to give it up because it was giving me back problems. It wasn’t quite THAT bad, but it would certainly look cumbersome next to a contemporary model. Anyway – I don’t own one anymore, and haven’t for some time.

I’m hardly what you’d call technophobic. I am the guy that gets called upon for technical assistance. I used to push buttons for a living. I design the odd webpage, write in a blog, operate an array of portable audiovisual recording devices, and can set the clock on the video recorder.

I do make an effort. Everyone around me seems to have one of those things. And I like to think I have an enlightened position on cellphone use in my lectures: by all means, leave your cellphones on.

Obviously, if you have one, then there must be someone who may need to get hold of you urgently. If you’re a fulltime student and someone rings you during your classtime, then naturally it’s an emergency and you must answer it. Simply signify your need to have an important conversation by standing up. We will stop the class and wait in respectful silence for your call to be completed, and then resume once you are off the phone.

Sending text messages seems to be a valid substitute for traditional note-taking. I don’t fully understand how that works, but I do want to learn.

However, my thinking to date on the topic of cellular phones for my own use has been as follows:

1) There are no radio lecturer emergencies in life. There just aren’t.

2) I lose stuff. A lot. (Has anyone seen my glasses?)

3) You want to talk to me? I’m quite easy to track down. Ring me at home, or my office. There’s voicemail on both of those numbers. Or you could email me. At any rate, I’ll get your message and I’ll ring you right back as soon as I bloody well feel like it.

And there it is. That same grumpy, unhelpful, anti-technology garbage that so appalled me in the Newsweek article. I don’t want to be that guy.

There have been numerous occasions recently that have made me consider the addition of a cellphone in my life, but these occasions have quickly passed with no undue effects. I don’t recall what the problems were, just the awareness that more technology may have provided a solution (or at least a satisfying diversion).

Nevertheless, I’ve managed to come up with certain excuses along the way that have prevented me from having to add another collection of buttons to my everyday existence.

The first is financial. You have to remember that I haven’t paid a cellphone bill in almost a decade. There’s got to be some value in that. Second, there are features that I know are just around the corner on cellphones, and I’m damned if I’m shelling out hundreds of dollars for a disposable technology, only to have to do it again next year.

I’m waiting for the combination cellphone, PDA, mp3 player, digital radio receiver, universal remote, bus pass, glasses case, personal electric fan and ultrasonic dog repeller. My Swiss Army phone will do everything.

Third, I’m waiting till cellphone manufacturers factor in the size of grown-up man fingers. I don’t have huge hamhocks at the end of my arms, but I resent feeling like a clod because I pressed three buttons at once. My minidisc recorder already makes me feel like giganto-man. I don’t need that position reiterated. I want something that I won’t inadvertently use to offer someone a light for their cigarette.

I’ve never sent a text message in my life. This is a confession, rather than a point of pride – though for the life of me, I can’t think why I would ever want to. My students insist it’s imperative to let your friends know that you’re not going to be where you said you were going to be, and are instead in an entirely different bar altogether.

Sorry, I just don’t get out that much – and I don’t know enough venues to have that many choices. Moreover, I’m quite keen on that whole ‘people doing what they said they were going to do’ thing. And sitting down with a friend at a cafe, but texting someone else entirely – isn’t that still considered rude? Call me oldfashioned.

And – oh, God – there’s that dreary, whinging voice of an aging man who can’t deal with the world as it is again.

Somebody give me a cellphone quick so I can go back to complaining about more important stuff like low-riding jeans, those stupid coffee milkshake things everyone seems to be buying and the mispronunciation of the word ‘says’.

Vodafone or Telecom – don’t care. Don’t even ask me what features I want. Yes please to whatever seems appropriate. Special free minutes monthly plan or pre-pay cards I have to buy at the BP down the road – surprise me. Just save me from this dreadful talkback caller attitude about portable communication devices. I want to change.

And where the hell are my glasses?