18 - Do You Feel Naked Without Your Cell Phone?

Am I walking the walk, or talking the talk? I keep saying I am going to cut back on my digital time, then I had an incident this week that reminded me how much I am hooked on having my phone with me.  I'm no spring chicken, and when I was a kid we didn't even have cell phones.  What happened to me, and why do I feel so empty if I forget it at home?  In today's episode I share a recent mishap that got me thinking about my dependance on technology. In a world where people expect instant connection, it can be a bit humbling when we have to slow down. 

Thanks for listening!  This is a hobby podcast, with a positive vibe. No legal or medical advice is provided in this podcast, it's recorded for entertainment purposes only.  No cooking advice either - some things are best left for the professionals.  Have a great day! 

Transcript

Cellphone-itis - Do I have It

A Mix-up, Wrong Place and No Phone

Digital Detox vs Necessity

Cell Phones in Public Places

Speaker Phones and Etiquette

Multi-Use Phone, So Many Tools

From Pagers to Cell Phones, Changing Communications

Feeling Dependent on my Phone

Audible Conversations

Down Time Isn't Always A Negative

Wrap Up

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Hi everyone, it's Lindy here. Welcome back to the podcast. Yeah, it's really great to be here in the good old podcast chair today. If you're new listening to my show for the first time, uh thank you so much for tuning in. And uh welcome back to everyone else who's followed me in this podcast series or even in my previous series. It's it's great to have you here with me. Yeah, just a quick reminder, this is just a hobby for me. Um I'm not a professional, I don't have a big production team, I just try to keep it positive, lighthearted, and uh I just record when I have time to record. It's fun. It's a creative outlet for me. Yeah, and I'm really glad that you've uh opted to press play on that button and join me along the creative journey. Uh I'm on a bit of a roll these days. Yeah, it just feels like I'm recording a bit more. Usually I try to do this every couple of weeks. Um sometimes it's a little bit longer in between. If life, you know, things happen in my life and I'm busy, I don't always have time to record. And sometimes that little creative side's sneaking its way in there, and I manage to find time for an extra episode or two. So yeah, this is not your normal podcast that comes out every Tuesday at 9 a.m. or anything like that. It's like uh when when I have time and the moment strikes, I'm podcasting. Kind of like cleaning my house. When the moment strikes, I'll vacuum. Okay. Uh seriously though. Uh, you know, and gosh, it's funny. I was thinking the other day, no wonder, you know, when I sit down after supper, I I have a hard time staying awake once I sit down on the couch. Uh, because I'm often snoring as soon as I sit down after supper, and I I have a hard time staying awake right away. And I thought, well, yeah, I'm not just real busy in the day. My mind is busy. I've got an active creative mind, and it's no wonder I'm tired when nighttime comes around. Today though, I'm gonna I better pitter powder get out of here, get to the topic. Uh I was thinking about cell phonitis. Yeah, I don't even know if there's such a thing as cell phonitis, but in my world there's cell phonitis. Sometimes I get a little bit too clingy with that little digital box that sits in my back pocket. Yeah, and I think I was thinking about it more this week, and it started with something that happened earlier in the week. Uh I was meeting a friend for breakfast a couple days ago, and we didn't um we we just hadn't got together in a long time. And now this particular friend of mine, she's a real gem, and we've been doing this for a number of years now. And I absolutely love our friendship. We don't get to see each other all the time. She's a real busy person too. And maybe we get together three or four times a year. That's probably about right. And when we get together, we usually go for breakfast or go for coffee, it's typically breakfast, and we can just pick up our conversations from our last visit. And my gosh, I just love this kind of friendship. I really do, because there's no pressure at all. Um, and it's just kindness all the way around. I I love listening to her. I love hearing her stories, finding out what's going on in her world. She always takes time to hear about mine, and we just really connect. And uh I'm so blessed to have that. Anyway, with this particular friend, we agreed we're gonna meet at nine o'clock in the morning. Yeah, not too early, not too late. So I messaged her at 7.30 that morning just to confirm we were still on. You know, I mean, we're all getting older and sometimes we forget things, so I wanted to make sure she hadn't forgotten, but no, no, I got a thumbs up. Perfect, she's gonna meet me there. So I like to be on time and I pull into the parking lot probably about five minutes before nine. Then as I'm pulling in the parking lot, I notice on the screen in my car, like you know, that little screen where your navigating panel is and stuff, I noticed there's a Bluetooth message that my audio is disconnected, my my telephone is disconnected, and I'm going, what? Why is my cell phone disconnected? Oh crap. I knew right away it meant I'd left my cell phone at home. And it's funny, because right away thinking, oh no, I don't have my cell phone. And then I'm thinking, oh, it's not a big deal. You know, come on, just sit down, have coffee and quick breakfast with your friend. You'll get home eventually and get it. There can't be anything that urgent that anyone's gonna try to call you in that hour and a half that you can't do without your cell phone. And then I start thinking, oh yeah, but darn, I taken a picture of my grocery list before I left the house. I have a magnetic shopping list on my fridge, and it's a dry erase one that I and I actually made it. And uh every time I go for groceries, I take a picture of the list on there, and then I use that picture when I'm in the store. When I go home, I erase it on that little uh list that's on the fridge. So yeah, I wanted my cell phone. I had my grocery list in there, and I'm trying to do all my errands at once right now because trying to limit the number of trips in my car. So anyway, it's like five tonight, I'm going, hmm, I could probably turn back and go get it, but no, no, no, no. I live ten to fifteen minutes away, and that's gonna make me late. I don't want to be late. So I go inside, sit down, I order a nice little peppermint tea, and I sit down and I wait. And I wait. And I wait. And around 9 15 I'm thinking, huh, that's kind of weird. She's never late. We're both people who like to be on time, and she's a very punctual person. 9 20 comes around. Hmm, now I'm getting a little bit worried, thinking, I hope she's okay. I don't know, maybe there's construction on the bridge or something. I don't know, it's just kind of weird. 9 25, she's still not there. Okay, my friend is never late. And I had no phone to check. Yeah, if my phone was in front of me, I could have checked to see did something happen, is she running late, did something come up, but I didn't have my phone. Then I'm thinking to myself, well, I could just borrow the phone up at the desk here. I could ask the lady that's serving me if I could borrow their business phone and maybe I could call her. But hmm, you know what? I don't even know her phone number. It's not like the old days, you know, when we were on landlines and we used to memorize our friends' phone numbers. Yeah, when I was a kid growing up and we had a landline, I knew all my friends' phones and phone numbers off by heart, but people don't do that now. You just put the contact in your phone and when you're ready to dial, you hit the contact. You press the button and the phone dials it for you. Anyway, so I let our server know that I was gonna have to go home and get my cell phone and explained that I was a little bit worried because my friend hadn't shown up. And I just said, hey, you know, if my friend comes in, she's a little lady with gray curly hair, and this is her name, can you please tell her I just went to get my phone and I'll be right back? And the lady that was serving me is super nice, and she says, Oh yeah, no problem at all. I'll I'll watch for her if that happens. So of course I'm headed home and I'm getting behind every pokey driver going home. They're all going 20, 25 kilometers an hour under the speed limit the whole way home. And I'm like, come on, I just want to go home and check my phone. And and I felt my anxious side creeping up a little bit on the inside as I'm getting home. And I'm realizing that I'm worried. Like I was genuinely worried about my friend, mostly because we confirmed our coffee date early that morning, and I'm thinking, what could have happened? So it's funny, you know, how your mind starts racing when those things happen. And I'm going home and I'm thinking, gosh, what if she fell when she's on her way to the car or something? What if she tripped and fell? Uh my friend is a little bit older than me, I'm turning 60 this year, so who knows? Anything's possible, right? What if she had some kind of a crisis with her family? What if she got the wrong place? And I'm thinking, oh, it can't be the wrong place, because we had clarified which place we were going to meet at. She probably knew what place we were at, but what if she did go to the wrong place? What if she's sitting there waiting for me and thinking I've showed her up? All these things go through your mind. Anyway, I get home. The cell phone is exactly where I left it, and I open it up and boom, there's a message from my friend. I went to the wrong place and you didn't have your phone. I'm here now. Oh gosh, I was so relieved. You see, it was never about taking up my time while I waited. It was about my anxious mind starting to think all these things. What if she got an accident? What if she fell? All these things that had me worried about her, and then that quick little moment I realized how much I care for my friend, and I would hate to see anything happen to her. To see her message and realize it was just simply human error, it was like this huge wave of relief went over me. Yeah, so I headed back to the car, and in just over ten minutes we're back seated across from each other. We exchanged a hug, we shared a good laugh over the morning mishap, and then the visit began. But we had both had a good chuckle. And then the funny part is as we were starting our conversation, we talked about the fact I'd forgotten my phone. I said, Yeah, I said I didn't want to go home and get my phone, it would have made me late. And then we just both talked about how we felt, I don't know, my friend says, I feel so naked without my cell phone. And I'm like, Yeah, I feel the same way. It's just like there's a part of me that's missing. And I'm going, hmm, that's not very good. Maybe that's telling me something. Maybe I'm on my phone too much again. And I talk about this lots in podcasts about digital detox and how we get too connected to things. And then it just takes one little instance like this to remind me that, yeah, maybe I'm talking the talk and not walking the walk. I'm getting a little bit too connected to this telephone here. Uh and it just seems, you know, whenever I have my phone with me and I forget to turn my volume up or if I leave my phone in the house charging while I'm in the yard, those are always the times when something really important does come up. And somebody who needs to reach me can't reach me. Those things just seem to happen. So I don't like to be on my cell phone in a store or public place or anything like that, though. Um, you know, I mean I like to go out and do things and not necessarily have to be responding all the time, but sometimes it just seems if I ignore it, I wished I hadn't. Um, but you know, going back to that topic of talking on cell phones and stores, my goodness, like it can be so loud and intrusive for other people. And honestly, uh cell phone conversations can be heard with both sides audible to nearby shoppers when you're in the store. I don't know how many times I've been in a public place and somebody's on a cell phone and they've got the volume cranked up so loud, even if that's not on speakerphone, you can hear everything that the other person's saying. Uh and I know sometimes too, I've been in stores and people have it on speakerphone, and the whole world is hearing the whole conversation. And, you know, even this week, you know, after this happened and I forgot my cell phone, I ended up stopping in a fairly large store. I won't say which one, but it was on the way home. And I found myself getting a little on the grumpy side because it seemed like I was constantly having to maneuver my cart around people who were stopped in the middle of the aisle and they're blocking both ways and they're having full conversations on their cell phones. But yeah, their carts in the middle of the aisle, nobody can get around them and they're yakking on their phone. And I'm finding myself getting a little bit grumpy and trying to be good natured, but on the inside, I'm like, get moving. And at one point a lady was yakking away on her phone and people are lined up behind her. Nobody can get around. Uh, and I just brought my cart right up. I ran around the other people, went right up beside the back end of her cart, and I just politely whispered, excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt, but can you please move over a bit? She looked up, looked around, and she was actually really good about it. She looked back and saw the lineup behind her, and I think she was embarrassed when she realized she'd caused a traffic jam of carts. And she moved over right away and she apologized, and I was good about it. I just said, Hey, no worries, it happens, thanks. And soon I was getting past, and all the other line of carts that had been just sitting there, they all followed behind me as well. I think nobody else wanted to go up and ask her to move. And like I said, I didn't do it rudely. I was really polite about it. I made it known that I didn't want to interrupt her call, but yeah, I'm there to shop. I need to get moving. So anyway, I was in another large store a couple months ago, and a lady was having this full-blown conversation about her family's estate. Like, yeah, right in the middle of a drugstore. Good grief. And she took her time, you know, she's sitting there, you know, in the little section where they have all the hair combs and hair products and stuff. She's sitting there holding up the pieces one by one and yakking on her phone at the same time, taking her time and blocking the aisle as she does it. And she's just talking full blast and she's naming relatives by name. Anybody who's nearby could hear the whole conversation. And yeah, this is kind of a sensitive topic. You're talking about somebody's estate and you're doing it full blast in a drugstore. Holy cow. Anyway, I just thought to myself, oh my goodness, how awful for that person on the other end. I mean, their voice was on speakerphone, you could hear the whole conversation. They're probably not even aware that she's doing that. If I'm in a public place, uh, I'm not going to use a speakerphone. In fact, I only do it at home if nobody else is in the room. But if, you know, if I want the other person in the room to be part of the conversation, the first thing I do is let that person know on the other end of the line, hey, just so you know, you're on speakerphone and here's who's in the room. I always let the other person know if it's on speakerphone. I just think that's so important. I mean, I remember years and years ago I was on the phone with a family member, someone who's quite close to me and I was kind of beaking off about something. And then I discovered that she wasn't the only person on the phone. She had somebody else in the room on speakerphone and nobody told me. I mean, lucky I didn't say anything I shouldn't have, you know, sometimes it kind of catches you, but I did speak a bit more freely than I would have had I known it was on speakerphone. Looking back on it, thinking, hmm, good thing I didn't have a chicken coop back then, or I might have gone on timeout in the chicken coop for my potty mouth. But yeah, you know, sometimes how you talk to one person might be different if you know those other people in the room. So I definitely think you gotta tell people if it's on speakerphone. But yeah, going back to this whole cell phone thing, I mean, cell phones are so much more than the phone for us now. Really, they are. For most people, they are. Oh, you're at the appointment, you know, say you're at a doctor's or a dentist or whatever, and you need to book an appointment. Okay, you just grab your cell phone and you put it in the calendar. Um, you need to phone somebody? Okay, well, yeah, you just find the contact in your phone and you click the call button. Don't have the phone number, well, then go over to the internet on your phone. Use your phone, find the internet, look up that business or whatever, and now you make the phone call. Hmm. Need to pass a message to someone, but maybe they're working and you don't interrupt them. Okay, so now you just grab your phone and you text them. Maybe you say, no rush, you're not urgent, you know, get back to me when you can, but you can still text them and you know they're gonna get it when they're free. Uh, for people who are parents or guardians, yeah, it can be really helpful to be able to get those check-in messages, especially throughout the day. You know, parents who are working, it's really nice to get that little text that says everything's fine. Maybe you're going for a walk or you're going somewhere and you just want to let somebody know where you're going and when you're going to be back, kind of like a buddy system. Yeah, handy to have that cell phone with you if you trip and hurt your ankle on the walk or something. You've got a safety mechanism, something you can use to contact people for help. Um, yeah, all these things cell phones do for us. Oh, maybe you're listening to my podcast right now on a cell phone. That's possible. Or, you know, a lot of people will listen to podcasts or audiobooks while they're walking. They'll put on some earbuds and do that. Um just thinking of all the things that cell phones do for us. Okay, alarm clocks, think of that. Okay, I've I've been in hotels, and if I have to be somewhere early in the morning and I'm worried that maybe the room call or the alarm clock won't work, yeah, put on the alarm on my cell phone. Kind of a backup to make sure I don't sleep in. Um, businesses are using cell phones all the time, not just for phone calls, but to do their social media. Yeah, they're out and about, they're on a location, or they're taking a picture of their latest product, so they take their cell phone, take a photo or a video, and now they're posting it right from their cell phone. Um, oh yeah, hey, I can add another thing cell phones are good for. Maybe you're doing self-tapes for acting. Perhaps you're auditioning for a role and you need a quick reel. Yeah. Your cell phone has now just become a recording device. You can send those videos or reels to your agent. Or in my case, a class instructor. Hmm, all kinds of things a cell phone will do. Now, how about a calculator? Okay. Um, yeah, I know I can do a lot of math in my head, but sometimes there's just too many numbers in that equation. And what do I do? Pull up the calculator on my phone. Okay, and now my phone has got done all these things. It's an instant camera, it's a digital photo album. Ah, I even have a ukulele tuner on my cell phone. Yeah, my my musical tuner quit working the other day, so found an app and now I got a ukulele tuner, and I can yeah, get that little ukulele tuned up. Too bad it wouldn't make me play better, but anyway, I do have that. So just thinking of all these things that I named, this is one multi use device, so many things this little box provides. And then I wonder, why do I feel so dependent on it? Why do so many of us say we feel naked without our cell phones? Well sure, they have so many uses. In the old days when a doctor was on call, somebody would leave a message with whoever answered the phone at their house or their office. Then it was answering machines and then pagers. But now it's instant connection if you got a cell phone. Yeah, not like the old years of pagers. Uh and if you're from a younger generation and you don't know what these pagers are, they were a little box that would give you like if somebody could send you a notification, you'd get like a ringing tone or something, and it would tell you that you had a message, and then you could go get a phone and phone somebody. And I mean, this is yeah, I'm going back. I remember in the 80s have being in a grocery store one time with this big old burly guy standing in the lineup, and he looked like he was like a really big, you know, kind of hardy kind of guy, tradesperson. Sorry, I hope this is coming out sounding right. I really intend it to be. It's just that he was definitely a tradesperson and he was looking real important. He had these big set of keys on his pocket and and just his mannerism and his pager goes off and he made some comments, but oh yeah, when you're good, they're always calling ya. And then the pager lady's voice comes up and she's like, Your wife wants you to pick up a jug of milk on the way home. Everybody in line smiling, yeah. When when you're good, they're always calling y'all, right? Anyway, that that's actually pretty cool. And it should be okay for your wife to ask you to pick up a jug of milk or vice versa. But you know, just like then, if it's all on speaker, everybody's gonna hear. Um, and I feel like I got a little bit addicted to my cell phone. You know, I go camping. Well, I still want to know I'm in cell range, and if I don't have any cell service, it's bugging me, and I want to know if there's options for satellite coverage. And everything costs, all this stuff costs, it all adds up. I mean, heck, when I first moved out, we didn't have to pay for internet or cell phones. It was just a landline. Cable TV if you could afford it. And now there's just so many options for people for all these technical connections. Yeah, it gets expensive. And I'm not ready to give up my cell phone, but I don't want to be one of those people who carries on full blown conversations in the middle of a store. Nobody needs to know that Aunt Marge isn't talking to Uncle Norman or Cousin Willie got drunk last night and that Ginger's husband is a jerk, and you know, even more, no one needs to know all the things your teenager told you in confidence about another teen, and now you're out blabbing it full blast in the middle of the store and everybody can hear. Yeah. I I don't actually know Aunt Marge, Uncle Norman, Willie, or Ginger. No, I don't know them. I'm just making up those names. But sometimes by the time that conversation's done, everybody in the room knows Aunt Marge, Uncle Norman, Willie, and Ginger. So yeah, a little privacy, discretion sometimes would be a good thing with those cells. Um and I thought about all this today, you know, and it just reminded me of this little sign that I made. I have it up on my little website. Oh, I can put a link in the show notes. It's a printable printable little sign at Plight Room. Huh, I can't talk. It's a printable little sign that politely reminds people to take their cell phone calls outside. Not a rude sign. It's not saying you can't take a call, it's just gently asking that, you know, for everybody's comfort, can you please take your calls outside? And in most cases, you know, it's not a big deal if the phone rings and someone says, oh yeah, hey, how's it going? And then they get up and walk outside and take their conversation. But if you're sitting in a restaurant, you know, and you're trying to relax and somebody's got this loud speaker on their cell phone and yakking away at their table, it kind of takes away from the relaxation and the ambiance of the restaurant. So yeah, I get it why people put those little signs up. But anyway, um, so all this started. I was thinking about all this with what happened when I went to meet my friend and I didn't have my cell phone. And you know, even when I was sitting there at the table in that restaurant and I was waiting for her, I'm twiddling my thumbs, looking at the menu, looking out the window, I'm hearing anyone else's conversations in there. Whereas if I'd had my cell phone with me, I would have started scrolling, I would have been looking up things or checking messages, it would have entertained me that whole 25 minutes. And I think it's kind of interesting because in that 25 minutes that I was sitting without a cell phone, it was 25 minutes to stop and think and rest. And my hand wasn't scrolling, I wasn't, you know, using the tendons on my hand to just sit there needlessly scrolling. I was actually sitting and resting and thinking. And it's amazing how when we don't have those things ready at our fingertips, sometimes it forces us to do things just a little bit differently. Um, so yeah, I do call this cell phone itis. I think I get to be a little bit too reliant on it. Maybe sometimes I don't need to pull out that calculator so quick. I could actually do the math in my head and instead of grabbing that calculator. And sometimes I could be more present in the moment if I wasn't always checking my cell phone. And when I have it there in my pocket, it's like, oh, gotta check my cell phone. And yeah, I'm guilty. And I I have to work on that. It was a big reminder for me this week. It's also a reminder for me though, that it doesn't hurt to make sure you have it with you because then when those things happen and somebody does need to get a hold of you, they really can. So anyway, cell phonitis. I noticed my tendons are getting a little flared up in my right arm, and I've been doing a lot of Stuff in the yard this week, you know, did some lawn mowing, did a lot of weeding, but I also probably did too much scrolling, and so it's a reminder for me. I need to not be scrolling on that cell phone. Every time I'm sitting and watching TV or doing something, I need to just put it down, put it away, use it when I need it, but not be on it endlessly. Cuz yeah, cell phonitis can lead to tendinitis. And I don't want to be doing that either. Anyway, I wonder if you're listening to my podcast for your cell phone today. Uh, if you are, I'm glad you are. And I hope you had a nice set of earbuds, and it's always a good idea to have them with my podcast, because you never know what might happen in my podcast. Some things are just best left in the podcast. Anyway, a quick reminder before I head out today, if you'd like to share feedback on the show, it can be done directly through my podcast webpage. And my website is www.grayroots and chicken boots.buzzsprout dot com. Yeah, buzzsprout is the hosting provider, so that's uh dot B-U-Z-Z-S-P-R-O-U-T dot com. Greyroots and chicken boots dot buzzsprout.com. Uh and you'll find a little spot on there. It says share your comments. Pretty cool. So if you're looking, yeah, if you're listening to me through direct through this website, you can click on the share your comments and it should allow you to send me a quick voicemail clip. That's pretty cool. I love to hear your thoughts on the episode or let me know what part of the world you're in, where you're listening to me from. Um, and if you're enjoying the episodes, I'd love to hear about that. Again, this is a hobby podcast for me. I just do this for fun. My hope is always just to create something a little thought-provoking or bring a touch of positivity to your day, make you smile, whatever it is. Um if it makes you smile, then that's totally a bonus. But yeah, if you want to reach out, that would be great. I'd love to hear from you. I do have to run. The sun is out again. I got chores to get in. As I said earlier, bitter batter, get at her, and this Grammy is not one to be sitting around. Okay, have a great week, everyone. Um, I'll be back as soon as I can. It might be a couple weeks this time now. We got a holiday weekend ahead of us, and I got some things coming up I have to deal with. Uh, but before I go, a quick reminder to keep smiling. Be kind. And if you can do something nice for someone this coming week, something you didn't plan. You know, a little gesture that's gonna make someone's day, that would just be really awesome. You know, whether you're giving a neighbor a hand or you're inviting someone who lives alone to come to dinner, maybe helping a senior with spring yard work or just being a friend. It's really all worth it in the end. Yeah. Nothing will bring more warmness to your heart than doing a kind action for someone else. So I often think of that song by Jewel. Uh she has a song where her last line ends with, In the end, only kindness matters. And yeah, that's so true. That's a cool song. Anyway, have a great week, everyone. And remember that smiles come in all languages and in all colors, and we'll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye.