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Choose a Landline Connection for Life without a Cellphone
Saturday, 03 December 2011, 01:36 IST
Bangalore: Ankit Varma pores over his worn out, slightly yellowed diary, tracks his own smudged handwriting for a number and thumbs in the digits on his wired landline.
For those glued to the cellphone - and, mind you, there are over 850 million such connections in India already -- it's hard to fathom why anyone would not want to use the digital device when it only seems to be getting cheaper, snazzier and better.
But in this day and age when our dependence on the cellphone has crossed all boundaries, adding to our vocabulary words like nomophobia (read: no-mobile-phobia), there are a determined few who buck the trend.
"It interrupts my thought process. The ability to think deeply and concentrate on a subject," says Varma, a writer.
"The landline and e-mail work well enough for me. I don't need a constant distraction in the garb of being tech-savvy," Varma, who parted with his Nokia two years ago, told IANS.
In this day and age when smart phones have changed the way we work, interact and consume information, when any idle moment is immediately replenished with a futile SMS, when a mobile theft is dramatically mourned, there are a few committed to their privacy.
In this day and age when dead batteries lead to withdrawal symptoms, when even bathrooms are not spared the screaming ringtones, when deals are closed on the move, when trains, streets and parks are filled with a thousand clones happily chatting to themselves, there are a few who refuse to bow to technology.
Incredulous as it may seem, there are people who survive without mobile phones, and happily too.
While distraction is one of the biggest problems of the mobile phone, self-reliance is no less a casualty.
"I have friends who turn pale if someone plays a prank on them by hiding their phones. They don't remember their parents' number, friends' number, birthdays, it's as if you've mortgaged your memory to a device," says Janaki Ramkumar, 23.
"I don't feel the need for a personal phone. After all, people have lived all these years without one. It can be done even now," Ramkumar, a student in Chennai, told.
Then there are those who believe the use of cellphones make people less appreciative of other's time.
"No one takes your time for granted if you are not carrying a phone. No one calls you half an hour before the scheduled time to meet and says 'sorry, I am running a little late'. They try to be a little more punctual," says Meera M., a web designer in Delhi.
Source: IANS
