I vaguely remember a time when I would haunt the mailbox waiting for a long love letter. Or come home from school and wait for the phone to ring, unless I was already on the phone wrapped around 10+ feet of cord listening to someone breathe on the other end. If I was in my NJ home I'd be lounged on the steps leading out of the kitchen. If I was in NH, I would either be in my room or perched on the kitchen counter, or maybe even on the back stoop with the cord snaked out through a crack in the door jam. (Divorced parents.)
If I wasn't home, I wasn't waiting.
Even in college, I almost never checked email, and mostly looked for actual physical mail in my second to the very last mail box in the University Post Office. I went to college between '93 and '97, bulletin boards and chat rooms were becoming the thing. Even MySpace didn't exist. And virtually no one had a mobile phone. Hell I remember the first car phones (wired in) and then mobile phones the size of a small suitcase that weighed more than my toddler.
Hubby and I got our first cell phones maybe a decade ago, for emergency use only. I don't even remember the phone number. I almost never used it. It was a Motorola bar style phone if I remember correctly. I'm not sure why or how I got my first "smartphone." It was a T-Mobile Sidekick. Not the first model, because the screen was in color. I know I had it when we moved to our current home in 2005. Having that phone got me checking email obsessively and following random Google searches for hours.
That phone died in 2008 and I got my second Sidekick with the lime green body and better screen. But the service was starting to be a real problem. And I was now on Facebook every single day and taking my phone to bed to surf porn or follow more random Google searches.
For the last two and a half years I have had a Droid 2. It is beat up and slightly cracked (body, not screen) and looks absolutely ancient in comparison to the latest models of smartphones. But it has this one little thing I can't live without. At the upper right corner of the phone, there is a teeny tiny little light that flashes if I have an email or text or other notification. I spend hours looking for that light. For a teeny tiny indication that someone has reached out to me. I look for that light to distract me from the tedium of telemarketing, to assure me I have been heard by someone to whom I've sent a text or email, to feel connected.
I just had to change my phone plan to save us money while we try to save the house. My father wanted me to get rid of data all together, and went on a rant about how I use the internet to cocoon and insulate myself. I see it as just the opposite. I reach out and connect with those around me through my Facebook accounts and emails and texts. I feel so alone if I don't see that flashing light.
I kept 1GB of data on the plan, just so I can check email and Facebook while I'm away from home.
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