Sir Ridesalot writes:

On Friday, June 7, 2019 at 4:02:50 PM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, June 7, 2019 at 11:59:18 AM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Friday, June 7, 2019 at 9:23:30 AM UTC-4, duane wrote:
On 07/06/2019 8:57 a.m., Rolf Mantel wrote:
Am 07.06.2019 um 14:03 schrieb Duane:
On 06/06/2019 8:54 p.m., John B. wrote:
On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 23:12:18 -0000 (UTC), Duane wrote:

John B. wrote:
On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 12:48:44 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 6/6/2019 8:54 AM, Rolf Mantel wrote:

I have sat in a car as a passenger when the driver was texted by his
wife and sent an answer via Siri.Â* Needed a few repetitions to
get the
right text but still simpler than ringing her to pass the estimated
arrival time.

And it's now so important to tell one's arrival time?

And when did all this become so important? And why now whenÂ* just a
few short years ago no one was frantically advising the world that
they would arrive in just three short minutes? Or perhaps 2 minutes
and 59 seconds?

Who said anything about 3 short minutes?Â* Maybe you're replying to
Frank's straw man?

The real situation was as follows: We (two dads a coaches) were taking
some kids to a "First Lego League" regional competition, leaving home
early in the morning; we had only a vague idea how long the competition
would run.

Perfect communication would have been to text the wife before getting
into the car for the way back.Â* As the husband forgot to do so, the wife
texted short before 8pm "When are you coming home?", and the husband
answered "Almost home. I'll drop M. off in Dossenheim and be home in 30
- 60 mins".

Typical for me is "There's an accident on the 401 and traffic is
blocked. I'm still in if you guys can wait for me. If not, see you
next ride."

No idea why the luddites come out whenever anything relatively new is
mentioned.

If they don't like them so much why don't they just ditch the cell
phone entirely instead of complaining about how others use them?
After all, it's not really that many years ago that there were no
cell phones and you had to use a land line to call anyone.

Try finding a pay phone. I have a cell phone but it has not become a
way of life or an undue distraction. There is also a difference
between being a Luddite and being po-lite. I don't yak on my phone
in public places or burden people with dopey texts and pictures of
my dinner entree. Nothing I do or eat is worthy of immediate
broadcast. I do let people know when I'm going to be late, but
usually by more than three minutes.

-- Jay Beattie.

I think that the preponderance of cell phones is a major reason why
there are so few pay phones left.

I remember stopping off at a large very well known coffee place in
St. George, Ontario, Canada and seeing perhaps 20 people sitting
around a large table (or 2 tables put together) and EVERY SINGLE
person at that table was yakking/texting or otherwise engaged with
their cellphone. People get together to ext? Or are they sharing
things?

I've seen people call or text a family member from a store so that
they could tell them about some in-store special and ask if they
wanted any of it.

As far as using a cellphone to tell someone you'll be there in a few
minutes; that can be very useful when you're going to be waiting
outside for them. My friends will often text or call me within a few
minutes of their arrival so that I can have my bike and myself ready
and waiting for them when they pull into the apartment building
driveway. It saves time.

I have a flip-phone that a family member got me for emergencies. It's
all I need or want. Others might want all the latest bells and
whistles because those are useful to them.

Cell-phone parking lots at airports seem like a really good reason to
call someone to say, "I just landed". They save a lot of parking fees
and time loafing around outside the security checkpoint.