After a tiring day, a commuter settled down in his seat and closed his eyes. As the train rolled out of the station, a woman sitting next to him pulled out her cell phone. She started talking in a loud voice: "Hi sweetheart. It's Suzy. I'm on the train". "Yes, I know it's the six thirty and not the four thirty, but I had a long meeting. No, honey, not with that Kevin from the accounting office. It was with the boss.. No sweetheart, you're the only one in my life. Yes, I'm sure, cross my heart!" Fifteen minutes later, she was still talking loudly. When the man sitting next to her had enough, he leaned over and said into the phone, "Suzy, hang up the phone and come back to bed." Suzy doesn't use her cell phone in public any more......
You know they say only 7% of American's do NOT have a cell phone. Since I am entrenched deeply in that camp (who would I talk to anyway), I just figure I am closer to being a 1%'er!!!
You're probably right. I work within walking distance of the "ghetto", every day there's tents set up giving away free cell phones. I'm pretty sure every welfare recipient "in da hood" has a smart phone now.
First time I saw one of those tents was a month ago when I was in Durant, OK...Couldn't believe there were people there every time I drove by!
The bad truth of it is some folks have several of those "free" phones. I've seen the tents set in Augusta and Waterville. Not exactly ghetto neighborhoods, but still enough foot traffic to keep the tents busy. Those phones are one thing I truly recent being forced to pay for.
We hosted some kids from Haiti a few weeks ago...and don't get me wrong, I understand that in order to get funding they have to play up the sympathy card...I understand that and realize that compared to our country they are indeed poor, but after the end of the concert I noted most of the CHILDREN had smart phones. We are talking 5-10 year olds. I suppose I am being judgemental and shouldn't be, and maybe its just so they can stay in contact with their parents at home, but it put a question mark on how impoverished they really are. My 4 daughters; they hate me because I won't let them have them. I am not trying to be mean, its just in a few short years they will want NOTHING to do with their Mom and I, now is a very special time (3, 9,10, and 11); we can do without cell phones. BUT being debt free is one reason I could retire at age 42 and a cell phone bill is just one more bill to pay.
Hum... Somehow this sounds like the time we made the decision when our 2 sons were young. Tv or no tv? We got rid of it and were never sorry. We really did have a lot of good times with our children. And come the weekend, we did not "go out" and leave the kids home. We usually stayed home and played with the kids and had a grand time.
I have to tell you that my kids did and are spending a lot of time with their kids. I think more so than I did. They all have TV. The little ones don't have cell phones, but the teenager does, the others are 20 or older. The ones who live here only get a limited amount of screen time. Then out the door while it is day light. When the snow comes, they still go out, but for much less time. The kids prefer computer screen time over TV. on the computer, they are always doing some computer interactive program and always right in front of us.
I ended up giving my 8 year old step daughter my wife's old cell phone this summer. It's not hooked up to a cell signal so we don't pay anything, but I did get her a Google number so she can text and make phone calls over wifi. She doesn't spend a whole lot of time on it which is good, but I like that she can still text us when she's at her dads on the weekends since they used to never let her call us when she felt homesick.
Let me tell you about a 6 and 8 year old that had to have a smart phone. One of those cases where it is supposedly justified because of a divorce....(yeah right, try spoiled instead) Both kids are irresponsible with their phones resulting in numerous trips back to restaurants to look for the phone they forgot, that sort of thing. And then the 6 year old (male) gets caught with porn on his phone! Yeah, OK. They really need the phones.