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Invasion of the Electronic Body Snatchers

KBU2

KBU2

Android Expert
Do you own your cellphone or does your cellphone owns you?

Do you check your cell phone more than 15 times a day?

Do you look at your phone before saying good morning to your wife or kids?

Do you have to have your cellphone with you 24/7 days a week?

If you lost your cellphone or mobile communication device, do you panic and fell like you lost something greater than a close family member?

Can you eat and enjoy a meal without looking at your cell phone or mobile device?

Do you need your cell phone or mobile device for almost every aspect in your conscious life near you at all times?

Do you feel as if you lost your cell phone or mobile device you will die without it?

Do you have your cell phone in hand while operating a motor vehicle that's over a ton through busy streets where thousands of pedestrians about?

When you wake up in the morning is the first thing you do is check your cell phone?

If any of these aspects apply to you you may be a victim of the invasion of the electronic body Snatcher?

Feel free to answer if you think any of these issues apply to you and you feel you're a victim in the invasion of the electronic body Snatcher.
 
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Most of those are just obsessive, but the one about the phone in your hand while driving is criminally irresponsible as well as profoundly stupid, so not really comparable to the rest.
 
Do you have your cell phone in hand while operating any vehicle, even a bicycle, through busy streets?

Does your local government have to provide special lanes for pedestrians(zombies) who can't leave their cell phones alone?
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Do you ignore warnings like "Please hold the hand rail, and do not look at mobile phone!" when using escalators on the subway?
 
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No problem. If I do grab the phone, it's to hit the weather forecasts and I use a couple of them NOAA, Windy are two. I don't do weather sites that have social media. I don't want the videos. Otherwise, the phone is mostly a library to save my back while on a nature hike. The iPad I have will download your craft instructions. That is handy as I can take the iPad right down to the quilting machine. For some reason, Android doesn't allow this. You can only get the instructions live with the Android app. Makes a difference in concentration. Wifi is usually good, but there are days.
You don't want to have to be keeping an eye on the wifi, instructions and quilting machine at the same time. Those machines sew at 1,500 + stitches per minute.

Thanks, Mike. I could just see a carjacker stealing my truck with "How to drive a stick shift" on his mobile phone.
 
That China thing truly blows my mind @mikedt

Fortunately having been a hand-held gadget guru since the late 1990s any chance of being body snatched has been negated by experience.

Then there was this professor who walked into a glass door while reading a book... Books are the gateway drug to becoming a hand-held hive-mind zombie.
 
Ha! Either way if it's criminal stupid or whatever, people do these things more so with cellphones than any other object known to man. But the question is do you own your device or does your device own you. I don't know if either of you ever contemplated the word Vice. Its an addiction or something morally wrong or an obsession of something you can't put down because you are addicted to it like a drug or cigarette smoker, a caffeine drinker, something that has you attached that you can't put down or can't do without for limit amount of time. The real question can you go without your smartphone for 30 days without feeling some type of anxiety or discomfort by not having it around . One can conjure up any amount of reasons or conjunctions in the attempt to alter the real fact they have an imminent problem. But my post was clearly meant for entertainment use or was it?
 
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KBU2 said:
Do you own your cellphone or does your cellphone owns you?

Do you have to have your cellphone with you 24/7 days a week?
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Not when I'm at the gym or swimming pool. :)

KBU2 said:
Do you feel as if you lost your cell phone or mobile device you will die without it?
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I do have to yes to this one, because do use my smart-phone to pay for pretty much everything now with Alipay and Wechat(Tenpay), as well as hiring bicycles, booking taxis, booking hotels, booking flights and trains, looking up bus routes, etc.
 
mikedt said:
Not when I'm at the gym or swimming pool. :)



I do have to yes to this one, because do use my smart-phone to pay for pretty much everything now with Alipay and Wechat(Tenpay), as well as hiring bicycles, booking taxis, booking hotels, booking flights and trains, looking up bus routes, etc.
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Hmm and the plot thickens
 
KBU2 said:
Hmm and the plot thickens
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A smart-phone is a useful tool, basically makes life easier and possibly safer for me. If didn't have it, I would have to carry cash around, be asking for directions, being ripped-off by unscrupulous cab drivers and that is something that used to happen quite often in China before DiDi(Chinese version of Uber or Lyft). Something happened a couple of months ago, I wanted to take a cab from my friend's house to the airport. Driver took a long detour to inflate the fare, but because it was booked through the smart-phone, the app detected the detour because of GPS tracking and I was able to successfully dispute the charge with DiDi, instead of quarrelling with the driver.

I can go to pretty much anywhere now and be self reliant thanks to smart-phone.
 
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mikedt said:
A smart-phone is a useful tool, basically makes life easier and possibly safer for me. If didn't have it, I would have to carry cash around, be asking for directions, being ripped-off by unscrupulous cab drivers and that is something that used to happen quite often in China before DiDi(Chinese version of Uber or Lyft). Something happened a couple of months ago, I wanted to take a cab from my friend's house to the airport. Driver took a long detour to inflate the fare, but because it was booked through the smart-phone, the app detected the detour because of GPS tracking and I was able to dispute the charge.

I can go to pretty much anywhere now and be self reliant thanks to smart-phone.
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Yes I agree with you 100% for I am a victim of the same consensus. I do everything on my cell phone banking and some short term stock trading, wireless printing, scheduling almost every aspect of life because of this God forsaken device. I'm a captive of its endless uses so it pretty much owns me.
 
KBU2 said:
Yes I agree with you 100% for I am a victim of the same consensus. I do everything on my cell phone banking and some short term stock trading, wireless printing, scheduling almost every aspect of life because of this God forsaken device. I'm a captive of its endless uses so it pretty much owns me.
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Having a smart-phone and app bikes makes sight-seeing more enjoyable for me sometimes.... :thumbsupdroid:
Tiananmen Square & MoBike.
IMG_20180520_150919.jpg

I'm NOT one of those zombies who rides a bike while looking at a phone, both hands are on the handlebars and eyes are on the road ahead.

Last month I was in Beijing, and thanks to the smart-phone and social networks(Wechat & QQ) I was able to meet-up with some of my former students and friends I've not seen for a long time. :)
 
mikedt said:
Having a smart-phone and app bikes makes sight-seeing more enjoyable for me sometimes.... :thumbsupdroid:
Tiananmen Square.
View attachment 133422
I'm NOT one of those zombies who rides a bike while looking at a phone, both hands are on the handlebars and eyes are on the road ahead.

Last month I was in Beijing, and thanks to the smart-phone and social networks(Wechat & QQ) I was able to meet-up with some of my former students and friends I've not seen for a long time. :)
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Ohh yes the soup is boiling over now:D I I feel comfortable saying your device owns you also to a certain extent.
 
A lot of people especially men will not agree with saying a device owns them because of their egotistic nature. But in hindsight you and I both know the true answer to this equation.
 
KBU2 said:
Yes I agree with you 100% for I am a victim of the same consensus. I do everything on my cell phone banking and some short term stock trading, wireless printing, scheduling almost every aspect of life because of this God forsaken device. I'm a captive of its endless uses so it pretty much owns me.
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But where do you draw the line between "useful" and "owns you"? I suspect there are people who would find it hard to go more than a couple of days without a car, but does that mean their car owns them?

Curiously I do none of the things you list here with my phone apart from using it as a diary. And I have used electronic diaries since the 1990s, before which I simply remembered my schedule (which on a day to day basis I still do - it's really only when it comes to longer term planning, avoiding clashes, that it's particularly important). And I used electronic diaries because I know I'm rubbish with paper ones, plus if I do forget something a paper diary can't remind me to look at it.

So my phone is primarily a PDA and communication device. Plus as I travel, and surprisingly often to places I've not been before, it's handy for looking up stuff like local transport. Could I live a month without it? Sure, but I think you picked the wrong time period: anyone who can go 3 days without can go 30. It's the people who can't go a few hours who have a problem.

(Note: "could I" is not the same as "would I choose to" - there are times, such as when there is a family health problem, when it is very useful indeed to have better communications options than landline or post. But there's no doubt I could live without a phone more easily than without a laptop).
 
Hadron said:
But where do you draw the line between "useful" and "owns you"? I suspect there are people who would find it hard to go more than a couple of days without a car, but does that mean their car owns them?

Curiously I do none of the things you list here with my phone apart from using it as a diary. And I have used electronic diaries since the 1990s, before which I simply remembered my schedule (which on a day to day basis I still do - it's really only when it comes to longer term planning, avoiding clashes, that it's particularly important). And I used electronic diaries because I know I'm rubbish with paper ones, plus if I do forget something a paper diary can't remind me to look at it.

So my phone is primarily a PDA and communication device. Plus as I travel, and surprisingly often to places I've not been before, it's handy for looking up stuff like local transport. Could I live a month without it? Sure, but I think you picked the wrong time period: anyone who can go 3 days without can go 30. It's the people who can't go a few hours who have a problem.

(Note: "could I" is not the same as "would I choose to" - there are times, such as when there is a family health problem, when it is very useful indeed to have better communications options than landline or post. But there's no doubt I could live without a phone more easily than without a laptop).
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Well that means this post doesn't apply to you doesn't it and it was meant for the ones that it does. As it was written, " If any of these aspects apply to you you may be a victim of the invasion of the electronic body Snatcher?" End of discussion right?
 
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