I forgot my phone or why I was a smartphone holdout

Can you believe it’s the last week of the summer?

It forces you to wonder if people are paying attention to any of the ongoing current events.

I know there are major developments in the NSA scandal ranging from the bugging of the United Nations to NSA employees bugging love interest and significant others. I’m also fairly confident that more people are paying attention to these events than the administration would like to believe.

The Middle East is about to blow up in a major way  While many have become desensitized to the middle east turmoil, I think many are watching events thre from the corner of their eyes.

In the months ahead, we will be faced with major debates in D.C, ranging from the inevitable raising of the debt ceiling to defunding Obamacare. So, I’ll take another week of willful ignorance.

Even if I’m not truly ignorant.

This leads me to this video “I forgot my phone,” which has gone viral and has nearly 8 million views in the last few days. The video illustrates why I waited until March of last year to purchase my first smartphone. Quite frankly, if it had not been for the presidential election and my blogging I most likely would still not have one. While I hate the bloody thing, I cannot deny my need for it. Although, not so much this year as last, but that has been mostly by design.

I have had computers since I was a kid starting with the old Commodore 64. I was linked to the internet since 1990, when most people still did not know what it was, I have never been anti-technology. However, I was never a fan of cell phones. I found it very irritating that people expected you to be available 24/7. Then with the introduction of social media and smartphones, I found it even more irritating that not only was I supposed to be available 24/7  but now people believed it was important I know what they are doing 24/7.

I was a Facebook holdout and other than my few connections with REAL friends and family, I find very little value in it. As for Twitterverse which I have only recently joined; it has its place, but I admit I still do not fully get it. Maybe it’s because I have been connected for so long that I find all these social media outlets silly.

But then I thought, maybe in this day and age of constant turmoil people just need to be distracted from continuous bad news.  Reality strikes though, whenever  I see a group of people sitting at a table not talking to each other but all of them on their smartphones with their little thumbs moving, I think: Yep! Society is doomed.

Then I see a video like this and the positive response it is receiving and gain a little hope. After all, the first step to fixing a problem is recognizing it exist.