For the past few days, we have been without phone service. It is amazing to hear an empty silence, which replaced a constant ringing phone. Life seems more gentle without all the interruptions. Things are more slow - paced.
If people need to reach us, they wait until we see them (on an outing) the following day. Supposed "urgent" conversations are no longer necessary.
The calls I need to make have become almost non-existent. What used to be important to me, no longer feels essential.
I realize a phone has become almost required for everyone. We certainly need them for emergencies. But I wonder if phone use (and it's expense) has gotten out of hand.
Today, most people have cell phones. They are texting and calling each other several times a day. We all have far too much instant access to each other. It makes it difficult to have quiet moments for creativity, family interaction in the home, and productivity. (The expense alone, of cell phones, is staggering!)
It used to be that no one ever called during the dinner hour. That was family time. Calls were made earlier in the day, or later in the evening. It was like a social respect of someone else's time, and privacy. Sadly, this custom is no longer relevant in modern life.
I wonder if phones have taken over our lives? I realize we can use voice mail and answering machines to take messages, and we can return calls at a regular time each day. But most of us don't do that. We feel that, since the phone rang, we must answer it. We are programed to answer it! If we don't, our imagination goes wild with worry about the missed call.
But what we don't realize is that this cultural pressure to use the phone all the time, is taking away massive amounts of our life and money.
Will I get my phone back? Of course. But I am thinking of ways to keep it more simple. There has to be a way to make the phone a tool, rather than a master. Why does the telephone have such a stronghold on society?
Could this be why parlours are generally empty and vacant of hospitality? Because we are too busy tied to the phone, or other types of technology?
What about the money we are paying for this convenience. Could, at least, some of it be better used for charity or the basic needs of those in our own homes?
Blessings
Mrs. White
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7 comments:
My home phone stays unplugged for that reason. We plug it in if we need to use to call someone. It rarely gets used anymore. We have cell phones but rarely use those either! LOL! I have mine to mainly communicate with my daughter in college :)
The only thing better than no telephone service is having no TV or cable service. The peace and quiet is amazing! Having no TV allows you to be more fully present in the moment and allows productivity in the home to go up substantially. My husband and children enjoy TV, but whenever they go out the first thing I do is turn it off!!!
I like having a low key life. I have no land line, just a cell. I don't make very many calls or send many texts. Most are between my husband and I. My phone doesn't ring very often and I almost always keep it on silent so I can choose whether or not I want to answer it at the time it rings. We also don't have cable, I don't want to watch enough TV to make it worth the cost of it. We do stream netflix for when we want to watch something.
We do not have a landline, but my husband & I both have cell phones (mostly for work).
I use the caller ID, and have no problem letting it go to voicemail if I'm busy with my children or husband (unless it's my grandmother!). We strictly enforce a "NO electronics at meal times" rule, except when my husband has a work call, and only then because he works in computers and if things break at his bank, he's often the only one who can fix them.
It is important to set aside a no cell phone zone or hours in one's home. I also think that when friends enter one's home it is also rude of them to use their phone or pick it up without asking.
I have a friend who does this and I find it annoying and rude.
We need to educate other's how to treat us and when we allow calls at all times we open ourselves up for living life interrupted.
pve
I find that cell phones are far more intrusive. At work, people are constantly tied to their smartphones, either surfing the internet on them, texting or receiving texts. It is not uncommon to be in a conversation with someone and have their phones beep endlessly telling them they have a text. These same people are unable to ignore the texts(you would swear they were transplant surgeons with the importance they place on checking texts). It is depressing. I have seen parents at my sons hockey games, ignore their childs game while they stare at their phones. It is heartbreaking. Imagine feeling less important than a phone.
I really dislike phones. If we didn't need our landline for our internet service, I wouldn't have one. The cell phone is a maddening thing in that it's because a necessity for emergencies. Traveling away from home for myself and my children makes this a non-negotiable. I don't know how we took so many chances in the old days without them! But the texting and the smart phones ... major annoyance. Once the kids' were no longer homeschooled and picked up jobs and community college, we were thrust into the texting frenzy. My H travels for work and is always given the latest smart phones to use .. so we are like any other modern family .. hooked up on smart phones and laptops constantly. There's nothing I can do to stop this...only refrain from using these things as much as possible myself. If it were up to me, I'd have no phone in the house, and people would have to write me letters!
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