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Legion of Cell Phone Resisters: Count Me in!

Everyone says I need a cell phone. And so I don't want one.

By Shannon Rupp, 3 Aug 2011, TheTyee.ca

Mobile phone throw-out

Throw off your oppressor. Let freedom ringtone!

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I belong to a small elite group about whom little is reported: the Legion of Cell Phone Resisters. Although legion is perhaps the wrong word. We're more like weary a band of stragglers following troops of people marching in lockstep and chanting, "Join us. Join us..."

Lately, I've been tempted to succumb to the aptly named cell -- carrying one, it is a little like being permanently jailed -- due to peer lectures. That's peer pressure for grown-ups. Past the teen years, that old rule that we must do everything our friends do takes the form of harangues about how we are being inconsiderate or uncooperative if we don't do everything they want.

Oprah mag's advice columnist even tackled the issue of whether it was bad manners to refuse the electronic leash when everyone else is living in bondage. Perplexed, she sought outside counsel: the corporate ethics adviser said yes, everyone is obligated to be available to everyone else all the time; the legal scholar said no, one is entitled to set limits.

You know who I agree with. Besides, I like the way cell phone resistance is becoming a status symbol. Montreal billionaire and investment guru Stephen Jarislowsky famously doesn't carry one, and he's the voice of common sense on most things. Of course, his assistant and all his many minions must remain tethered to the hive.

I think this makes cell phone-free living a status symbol because, by definition, status symbols are something only a handful of people can achieve. My fish-belly white skin would have been a big asset around 1795 when the masses were labouring on farms and cultivating skin like leather. But by the 1920s, a glorious bronze was the thing to sport since only the wealthy could afford to sunbathe on beaches while armies of pasty-white factory and office workers toiled.

I think cell phones are a lot like tanning: something that used to be considered glamourous and is now viewed as a cancer risk.

Which is why I tremble as my comrades in the Resistance fall. More than 75 per cent of Canadian households have cell phones, so it's clear our days are numbered.

How urgent is anything?

Robin Laurence, a visual arts critic in Vancouver, is one of the few remaining holdouts, and she's used to being called a Luddite. Laurence refused to use voicemail until a few years ago when an editor insisted. She succumbed to email around the same time for the same reason. However she uses it only at an Internet café -- unlike almost 80 per cent of Canadians, she has no home Internet access. As she nears retirement, it's clear she may never have to join the 35 per cent of people already accessing the web via smartphones.

She sees cell phones as "life and death" technology -- essential only for those who are on-call for emergencies, which doesn't include the sort of feature writing she does in newspapers and magazines.

"Are you going to get a call from your editor saying your punctuation has ruptured?" says Laurence. "Really: How urgent is it? Newspapers and magazines have been put out for decades without cell phones."

She also shudders at the way Canada's more than 24 million cell phones have blurred the line between public and private space, noting that riding the bus is like being forced to watch reality television.

"People have loud conversations about the intimate details of their love lives. Or worse: their gastro-intestinal problems. I don't want to hear about their diarrhea!"

I would suggest she just get an iPod, but I don't want to spook her. She allows that she may soon be forced into phone-toting as the pay phones have all but disappeared. It flashed through my mind that there could be a phone-finding app, and then I realized how this wretched technology is warping us.

"But I'd only use a cell phone for calling out," Laurence continues. "I'm not interested in having anyone phone in -- I don't want any more portals into my privacy."

Into the wilderness

Lest you view her as one step away from being labeled a dangerous loner, Laurence is uncommonly social in the old-fashioned sense of the word -- she's out with friends most evenings. That's partly because she has never owned a TV, and without Internet access she doesn't fritter away her time in Facebook, Twitter, Quora or any of a host of online diversions that give people the illusion they're socializing.

Her views are echoed by Greg Klassen, publicity and marketing directory for Winnipeg's Prairie Theatre Exchange theatre, who recently committed to three weeks of cell phone ownership for the first time due to a freelance gig marketing a film fest. (And yes, I did have to search beyond provincial borders for cell phone resisters because when I called the usual suspects, it turned out they'd all succumbed to some Angry Birds-playing device.)

"There was just no other way to do the job," Klassen says. "But as soon as the festival is over, I'm done." But then he hesitates. He's at the top of the slippery slope where he can see there are genuine emergencies better met by phone. Like when his partner injured his ankle during a summer hike last year.

"A phone might have been good then. But that's the dilemma: you go to the wilderness to get away from phones."

At 47, Klassen makes wry jokes about being flummoxed by technology due to age, and says he decided to brave cell hell after he spotted a herd of baby bunheads in pink tights and tutus all texting on their tiny pink mobiles.

"I figured if the eight-year-olds could handle it, I could," he says. But he adds that children love cell phones because they aren't fielding hundreds of emails and calls from people under the illusion that they're entitled to get an answer right this minute.

To the barricades

Klassen disputes the argument that cell phones -- or most of the technology tools -- save time. He resisted using Facebook and other social media until recently because he suspects they just transfer our energy to new and often less valuable tasks. He worries that they steal our concentration without actually helping us do the job at hand, which is his primary objection to cell phones.

"I get my best ideas when I'm away from the office -- that's just the way it is with this kind of work -- but if I have a cell phone I'm never away. And I need that four blocks when I'm walking to the supermarket for me."

Of course, that and so much else can be blamed on the attitude of Gen N (for Narcissists). Although to be fair, phoning -- as in ringing someone up -- is on the decline having given way to texting. And often sexting. But that's another issue with even more distractions.

Since we're not the sort to swing sledge hammers at cell towers as if they were so many knitting machines, my comrades in the Resistance and I have no solution to the problem, short of cultivating an image as charming eccentrics.

So we've decided to form a club. We're having some stylish berets designed and as soon as we get the carrier pigeons trained, we'll send out word of the inaugural meeting. [Tyee]

Shannon Rupp is a Tyee contributing editor, whose previous articles can be found here.

39 Comments:

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  • doggone

    42 weeks ago

    Stranger in a strange land

    I had the early "Bag" phone in 1990 and watched the process of miniaturization and increased convenience take over everyone's attention.
    A couple of nights ago my daughter came over for the evening with son-in-law and grand daughter. Since we have installed a router each of them had some device working in front of them some part of the evening.
    The wife and I have this desktop, a "pay as you go" cell and an iPod so it occurs to me we could each have been waving and tapping at a screen all evening.
    I work as a mobile handyman and over the years most contractors I work with have learned to ignore the ringing and screen incoming calls at their own convenience. The last thing one needs on a ladder with an overloaded tool belt is a call to say: "how are you?".

  • snert

    42 weeks ago

    As if people on buses never had loud conversations sans phones.

    Quote:
    "People have loud conversations about the intimate details of their love lives. Or worse: their gastro-intestinal problems. I don't want to hear about their diarrhea!"

  • alive

    42 weeks ago

    Luddite calling

    So, I'm a luddite!
    Recently I needed to call a friend on her cell and since I was away from home I finally found a pay-phone.

    To my surprise I could not connect that way!
    The system insisted on entering the area code, and then refused to accept all the digits?

    A friendly stranger lent me his cell and I made the call.

    Being retired I have no desire for calls anywhere, anytime, so just like ditching my watch I have refused to carry any portable devices as well.

    Now, if anyone wished to explain (in simple language) how to call from a pay-phone to a cell, I'd appreciate it.

    Perhaps some will explain about the possibility of getting cancer from cells and perhaps tell me that my hearing aids also are likely to do so?

  • snert

    42 weeks ago

    alive

    What's a pay phone? Aren't those the things Telus removes because they keep getting ripped off and broken into?

  • Van Isle

    42 weeks ago

    Both my wife and I don't

    Both my wife and I don't have a cell phone and never have. Probably the main reason is that we don't really need one. Hell, it was only 5 years ago that we got an answering machine which serves us just fine. Another reason is that they're damn expensive compared to the rest of the world. I guess, not having one, is just another way of telling the corpoate world to get stuffed.

  • WC Hermit

    42 weeks ago

    Chuckle, Smile, Smirk

    There are some advantages to being Deaf!!! Smirk
    No phone, no pool no pets
    Smile
    No outrageous bills at the end of the month
    Chuckle

  • Ramona777

    42 weeks ago

    Thanks Shannon

    Your story put into words most of my feeling about cell phones. Walk down a street and lo and behold, you see legions of people looking at their gadgets, not paying attention to their surroundings.
    Our culture is becoming one of people beholden to technology, who can't function without an "app."
    I will continue to resist until someone can prove I need a piece of plastic that turns me into a follower.

  • geoffdembicki

    42 weeks ago

    Can I join the Legion?

    Two years and counting now without a cell phone!

  • OhCanada

    42 weeks ago

    Van Isle

    "just another way of telling the corpoate world to get stuffed" - I'm with you on that one.

    I don't have a cell phone and I don't see a need to have one. You want to reach me call my home and leave a message. When I can, I call back. When I want to talk to my friends I call them when I'm home conveniently sitting in my chair in privacy. Or rather I prefer to meet them and talk to them in person.

    All this facebook, twitter and other social media stuff is really serves only one purpose - to separate people and dismantle communities.

    80% of the people don't need to have a cell phone since most of them are not emergency workers. Telling your friend that you are on the bus and looking out the window is just hilariously stupid and idiotic.

    I have no desire to join this type of crowd. I rather be different.

    Where do I sign up for the cellphoneless club?

  • Vox.Pop

    42 weeks ago

    Don't call me, I'll call you.

    I've had a cell phone for 10 years but I keep it off all the time except when I need it. So, I make about 3 calls per month (Telus charges $15 a month for such low usage). I bought the phone as an emergency device, as I had had one heart attack & still liked to go for walks in the woods alone. Contrary to common opinion, most heart attacks do not fell you in an instant - there's plenty of time to dial 911 & talk to the operator (I've not had to yet!)..
    I won't get a smart-phone as I don't want anyone (government?) tracking me through the built-in GPS & the Internet already soaks up one hour of my life each day. I need private time to think & read plus public time to talk to people face-to-face, preferably in a group (can't beat cafe society). So, I'll just remain a Luddite.

  • dave0ferg

    42 weeks ago

    Bell nixes telephone

    “In retrospect, (Alexander Graham) Bell considered his most famous invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study.”
    —Wikipedia

  • snert

    42 weeks ago

    You know you're a luddite.......

    when you can't find the off switch.

  • jimmyninja

    42 weeks ago

    The reason why those cell conversations on the bus make us crazy

    One sided conversations distract us more than regular conversations. http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/sci_update.php?DocID=420

  • Ramona777

    42 weeks ago

    Snert ...

    I can't even find the "on" button!!!

  • kepstein

    42 weeks ago

    Your league might be interested in this article

    I admit to having a cell phone and using it but also aspiring to this:

    http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/466/

  • hughstimson

    42 weeks ago

    intrusive calls are a pre-cellphone phenomenon

    I suspect intrusive phone calls are more of a pre-cellphone-era phenomenon, which non-cellphone users assume would be amplified by carrying one with them.

    My peers and colleagues perceive voice calls as a communication of last resort, to be used in rare cases where an email or perhaps text won't do. (Or for social use, which is a good use right?) Calling someone without particular cause would be considered unusual, possibly rude.

  • A Voice

    42 weeks ago

    Who truely NEEDS one

    Best marketing campaign ever to hit humanity.
    A must for every sheep and lamb out there, be in touch at any time, in every sensitive moment in your life. Let every stranger in the world sitting next to you hear your most private moments, never be out of touch again...bunch of brainwashed suckers, go ahead you know you need that $800 IPhone, you neeeed it...now get out there and buy it...you life will not be complete with out it!!!!

  • Fii

    42 weeks ago

    Go Shannon!

    I've had a cell since I moved to Vancouver because the first place I rented didn't have a land phone outlet available. BUT throughout the past 10 yrs, I've had pretty much the same really basic model. It is currently being held together by tape :) There's nothing wrong with the phone, it's just that the plastic numbers are peeling off. I can text without looking now so it's not even necessary to have the numbers, but there ya go... My students absolutely freak out when they see it and I love their reaction and their pleas for me to upgrade. Some of my friends have caved and are toting around i-phones but I WON'T do it. On the other hand, I have a couple friends who belong to the Cell Phone Resister group. One has no internet access at home nor a cell, and he's in his 30s. Love it. When my cell flashes "public phone" it may as well flash his name.

    And as far as the cancer thing goes, I believe strongly cells are causing a lot of damage. I rarely speak for long on mine (mostly text) but if I do my ear gets hot after about 15 minutes... pretty disturbing.

  • unrealisticexpe...

    42 weeks ago

    omg hipsters

    Yes its so uber to say you are too cool for a cel phone. I fully expect hipsters to start swapping their phones for corded ones in droves any day now.

    A cellular phone is a tool. That is all. Do some people get obsessed with their tools and overuse them? Of course! Does this mean that the tools themselves are bad? No!

    It's not hard people. Blame the people not the tools. Some of us have self control and don't need to "play", with our phones. Some of us like to let our wives know when we are running late and very rarely if ever, use the phone for any pleasurable purpose whatsoever.

    So let the "cool" people ditch their phones. They are probably too trendy for me to talk to anyways!

  • Langley

    42 weeks ago

    Had one for so long now

    I haven't had a landline in 15 years and although I'd love to send the cell and its $65 per-month bill into the abyss, there's no chance.
    I have no desire to have a smartphone nor do I really give a crap about my phone really(it gets turned right off at work)- but I will never go back to the landline. Never

  • Dan the socialist

    42 weeks ago

    I still have a landline. I

    I still have a landline. I would like a cell phone but until we stopped being ripped off I won't bother.

  • RickOshea

    42 weeks ago

    Neo-Luddite

    I wanna be a neo-luddite... be defined by what I don't have - a smart phone, a wrist watch... both very small steps in the anti-consumer direction...

    My father used to say 'your possessions end up owning you'... spot on.

  • temp

    42 weeks ago

    cell phones are not cancer ric=sk

    Dear Shannon: your statement: "...cell phones...something that used to be considered glamourous and is now viewed as a cancer risk..." is not true. The link you provide reports what the World Health Org(WHO) stated: that cell phones MAY cause cancer. That weak statement was due to the poor type of study performed. The researchers asked people that ALREADY had cancer about their cell phone use. These type of epidemiological studies can't prove anything. They could have asked subjects how many oranges they ate per day and tried to find some link. The fact is there are 5 billion cell phone users worldwide yet there is not a single verified case of cancer being caused by cell phone radiation. Brain cancer rates have been dropping in the US for the last 2 decades. The physical reality is that the frequency of cell phone radiation is one million times too low to break strands of DNA. However, there is a risk of injury using a cell phone while driving or walking...

  • sunshine coast girl

    42 weeks ago

    Count me in.....

    No cell phone for me. Not only do I not need to be on call 24/7 (that's what answering machines are for), but the cost is horrendous.

    I pay about $40 per month for my landline. My husband and two sons between them pay approx. $300 per month for cell phones. Who's the smart one in the family, I wonder? It's a complete racket and they can do it without me.

  • doggone

    42 weeks ago

    Years ago

    I checked the Woodward Library for references to "EMF" and found that then only the Russians had any publications(1971 or so).
    If your phone can get a signal you also are influenced by that radiation. Whether it will cause "Brain Cancer" or not is moot - the bath of electromagnetic (radio/Microwave/HF/UF---)
    radiation is present and increasing.
    There is and has been lot's of background radiation - we are adapted to that - however, holding a transmitting device close to your head for any extended period is not advised

  • temp

    42 weeks ago

    hello Fii

    Your ear get warm because the phone is generating heat. It is on the order one or two watts of radiation (non ionising). The blood flowing through your head and hands takes away this heat and your body is cooled. For a comparison if you ran on a treadmill for 30 min, your leg muscle would generate about 900 watts of heat. Just because your phone gets warm doesn't mean it's giving you cancer. When you walk on black asphalt on a hot day, the heat you feel is electromagnetic radiation. Also for your information, there are 5 billion cell phone users worldwide yet there is not a single verified case of cancer being caused by cell phone radiation.

  • zalm

    42 weeks ago

    shannon

    hear,hear!

  • zalm

    42 weeks ago

    snert

    "What's a pay phone? Aren't those the things Telus removes because they keep getting ripped off and broken into?"

    It's also the only means of communication that will stay up during and after the B itg One, a major power ouage, or any other region-wide disaster, which is why hospitals still ahve them around, and why Telus hasn't been permitted to give up all of them.

    The switches are in hardened and protected buildings and the vast majority of subsurface lines are the same.

  • Arthur_Ralfs

    42 weeks ago

    I've never had a cell phone

    I've never had a cell phone primarily because I never liked talking on the phone anyway and they're too expensive to have just in case I need one for an emergency. So far I've never been in a situation where I really wished I had a cell phone.

    However I consider myself technology friendly having both a desktop and a laptop and I'm the type of guy who takes my laptop with me to the coffee shop. I find it's a question of what technology is genuinely useful to me and worth the price.

    Oddly perhaps I'm mulling the idea of getting a smart phone not for the "phone" but because it's a hand held computer and I can see the utility of that, one hand held gadget that does it all. I'm thinking though that I'd get one "unlocked", without a contract, so I wouldn't even use it as a phone.

  • snert

    42 weeks ago

    zalm

    There are scenarios where both systems will fail. If there is a real disaster I'd be willing to bet that all the pay phones would very quickly disappear unless guarded 24/7.

  • driftwolf

    42 weeks ago

    my reason

    Only reason I don't have one is that I refuse to be scammed. Since Canada has the highest mobile phone rates of any country, for no good reason other than the CRTC being the toothless bitch of the Shaw/Bell/Telus/Rogers cartel, I refuse to buy one in Canada. If it becomes urgent that I get one, I'll probably head down to the USA, get a phone with a "North America" roaming contract, and STILL pay a lot less than I would for a "local" phone here in Canada.

    Consumers in Canada are sheep, and are getting fleeced every day. I refuse to be part of that number.

  • on ways to pleasure

    42 weeks ago

    for pleasure or business

    I'll join the club, even though I do have a cell phone; I'm a reg. nurse and a father. However, I really dislike the idea of being 24/7 on this hook. For the last 15 years it's clear, as any other fashion gadget, a cell phone is pushed into you buy the annoying commercials that tell you you can not live without it. So here comes peer pressure too, starting as early as elementary school: ipod, smartphone, you don't have it?- u-suck.
    I've had a simple phone that I only changed after loosing a charger or it made sense to switch a provider; and all this time I had a pre-paid service.
    I hate to see my friends, or my kid's friends getting together and while talking to each other also to manipulate the touch screen technology. If I take a PS3 control from my kid, he takes his iphone and goes to his room or washroom to play.
    Mind you, getting this stuff for him was not my idea.

  • Fii

    42 weeks ago

    Yes, temp, but...

    Cell phones have only been in wide use for about 15 yrs... it took decades for people to clue in that smoking really WAS bad for them. Laughable now of course (not the fact of the danger of smoking, but the stupidity of people) but there it is- we're the guinea pigs.

  • zalm

    42 weeks ago

    snert

    "There are scenarios where both systems will fail."

    Darned few. Read again - "hardened". Time was when every disaster pack at schools and hospitals included a role of quarters for the payphones. Every disaster plan for Telus included automatic call routing priorities for payphones over any other call.

    The things we used to believe, eh?

  • happy

    42 weeks ago

    Dziekanski

    Need I say more you luddites? How would you have liked the RCMP to walk scott free on that one. It wouldn't even have barley made the news if it wasn't for a cell phone.
    Most people don't carry video cameras. Most people DO carry a phone - with built in cameras.

  • zalm

    42 weeks ago

    Nedd Ludd Livves

    Stanley Cup Riots

    Need I say more? A thousand people with cellphone cameras all playing journo with a mission, and ostensibly egging on rioters by providing a cover of faceless anonymity.

    So much has the cell-cam done for us. What is it - 30 charges so far? When are the other 285,366 going to be filed?

    This society will be one to honour when its members stop living their lives through technology and start living them through genuine relationships.

  • Ramona777

    42 weeks ago

    Right On Zalm!

    What's that old saying about "give them enough rope."
    Happy, the sad thing is, there were witnesses who did nothing. Yes, that is one case where the cellphone proved useful. But what are the odds, one in 22 million, daily, in Canada?

  • One2Work

    41 weeks ago

    Cell Phones

    I run a very successful business and almost never give my cell number to anyone. I have a pay as you go Nokia phone in case my elderly mother gets into trouble. I am online at least 6 hours a day, recruit for people all over the world and manage to do it without joining Facebook, Twitter. I have a good memory, I think, & try not to get distracted. I just bought a new Dell with a 23 inch screen, a great keyboard that sure beats a 2 inch with keys that are too small.

  • One2Work

    41 weeks ago

    Liberate yourself.

    My cell is a Nokia pay as you go phone. I use it for emergencies only and never give that number to anyone except family. It is a useful device but I will not be ruled by technology. The kids think these things are cool and roll their eyes if they have to wait a nano second to connect. They have no idea that our generation invented this tool & that the signal is travelling at warp speed from tower to tower or to satellites for them to relate what they ate for lunch to their friends. And who wants to cripple their thumbs on tiny keys and view a 2 inch screen? Or even hear anyone over the din of the city. I just got a new powerful PC with a 23 inch screen and a great keyboard. AND - I can do business on it, watch educational courses, email or simply walk away from it!
    Maybe age brings wisdom.....

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