2 Months Without a Mobile Phone
Due to a combination of UK bureaucracy, Apple’s servitude to AT&T, and my stubbornness – I refuse to carry two phones or give up my iPhone apps –, I spent my first two months abroad, phoneless. There was at least one positive result from the ordeal though: I was forced to experience what it’s like to not have ubiquitous mobile connectivity. Below are a few take-aways from the experience.
1. Mobile phones are unnecessary
To clarify, by mobile phones I mean the technology that allows people to place mobile calls. My job involves frequent communication, and yet there was not one time in the past two months where a situation was drastically effected by my need to return to a computer to make a call. As mobile computing eclipses mobile calling, phone technology is starting to become more of a feature than a product. And rightly so: carrying around a device that can receive calls is surprisingly unnecessary. For social situations, I do regret not having text messaging capability, but again, voice was completely unwarranted.
2. Unplanned calls are highly invasive & disruptive
When the telephone was invented, people were initially taken aback by this blatant invasion of privacy: suddenly anyone could ‘enter’ your home at any hour of the night, unannounced. Today we might choose to ignore (or forgot) this, but it is incredible that we see it as completely normal for someone to force you to participate in a conversation just to ascertain a message’s importance and subject. Beyond encouraging poor communication etiquette, unplanned calls interrupt precious thought and focus. While email and text messaging can be equally distracting, at least there are efficient ways of quickly determining importance and postponing response.
3. Voice is not the technology of the (near) future
Given the increasing efficiency and functionality of mobile messaging, I do not believe that ‘voice,’ at least in its current form, will be a central technology of the near future. Reading comprehension for the average person tops out at about 400 words per minute (600 per minute for 70% comprehension), whereas auctioneers speak at around 250 words per minute. On the creation side, speech to text would be highly beneficial given that we speak faster than we write, but as demonstrated by Google Voice, machine transcription technology has a long way to go.
Given these observations, and rising concern over holding a radiocative device next to our heads, I’m going to try to refrain from mobile calling and answering unplanned calls as much as possible. So if you need to reach me, send me an email or text first!
Juventas Fugit is designed and written by Justin Wohlstadter, who, when not writing in the third person, can be found in a coffee shop talking about startups, thinking about the future of education, and generally procrastinating something important.
- Passions: startups that positively affect the world, education innovation, good design, learning, and meeting those with an equally insatiable curiosity.
- Play: director of product design at Enterproid and partner at BOLDstart Ventures.
- Previously: built the early-stage venture arm of Penny Black. And many other crazy, less successful ventures involving fire extinguishers, measuring philanthropic impact, and creative spaces.
- Pedantry: most of the important stuff I taught myself or learned from friends, but I’m fortunate to have (barely received) degrees from Harvard and Oxford. At Oxford I wrote my dissertation on how internet innovation will disrupt access to higher education.
- Procrastination: can be found on Twitter, Linkedin, AngelList and other web spaces, and be reached via email at my first name at this domain.
