I hope this clarifies the question once and for all, though it probably will not. I'm the one without the mobile phone, but my friends, for some reason, are the ones who feel the pain. Some have been on a virtual crusade, with the evangelical zeal of Jehovah Witnesses, to 'save' the recalcitrant non-believer. Others take delight in saying, "I told you so," at the slightest inconvenience arising from my 'stubbornness'.
Truth is, stubbornness has nothing to do with it. I simply value my time and sanity more than others do, I guess. I did own a mobile phone some twelve years ago, but then someone did me a favour by stealing it. I have never been more thankful since.
First, a quantitative analysis. To say that the mobile phone is a 'bloody waste of time' would be an understatement. Let's assume that one makes five phone calls a day, and receives another five. If each call takes ten minutes, that would result in 100 minutes a day spent talking on that stupid instrument. Do I have one hour and forty minutes to waste everyday? What do you think? No, I don't play golf, either. What if each call takes 15 minutes? 20, 25, 30 minutes? (I know of people who can talk for up to an hour each time!) You have a calculator? Figure it out. I think my time and my life is far more important than that. Furthermore, I think it should be made a criminal offense to talk more than one minute on the phone during any call, and waste other people's time. A mandatory death sentence should do it.
Next, a qualitative assessment. It's eight thirty in the morning and I'm in the toilet, doing whatever it is that people do in toilets. The phone rings in the bedroom. Ring! Ring! Pick me up, pick me up! Right now, you moron! Right now! I ignore it, but it has already annoyed me. Then it stops. Thank God, I think. Then, a minute later it starts again. Same thing. Ring! Ring! Pick me up, pick me up! Right now, you moron! "Damn it," I swear, hurry up, wrap a towel around my waist and go out. "Has someone died?" I want to scream into the phone, but I know I will not, because I don't want a divorce, and I'm not that badly brought up, although sometimes I wish I was. Besides, if someone was already dead, it wouldn't be urgent, would it? Anyway, I'm sure the call is not be important, and it isn't. (99% of all calls are not important, in my estimate.)
The mobile phone is the new ball and chain, the electronic ankle bracelet. It is the new dog collar of management. We had a temp called Mohan one time; a delightful young man with some other qualities as well. One day he came to work with a brand new mobile phone. (He didn't have any before.) "My girlfriend bought it for me," he explained sheepishly. "Hahaha! You're dead, man! Your girlfriend has just put a dog collar around your neck." "I know," he admitted, with even less enthusiasm.
Bosses like their employees in dog collars. No matter how shiny they are, how many games you can play on them, or videos you can watch, and no matter what else it can do with them, they are nothing more than dog collars, man. If your boss wants to unload a monkey onto your shoulders at 2 o'clock in the morning, or whenever, you're 'it' man! That's what mobiles phones are for. Passing monkeys. Slightest problem? Scroll down the 'contacts' list and look for someone to unload it on. Bosses, friends, relatives: they all do it. "It's their problem, now. I've done my job." Have they? What do you do when someone unloads a monkey on you? Scroll down name list and pass in on as quickly as you can. And on, and on, and on in an endless game of shirking responsibility.
As for me, I'm not playing that game anymore. Send me an email. I strongly believe that the email is a most civilised form of communication. It allows the recipient to respond in good time without being impolite, giving the person sufficient space to think of a reply. That's why I hate it when some insist I speak to them on the phone about their manuscripts, and call my staff all sorts of names when they can't. Look, send me your manuscripts by email, okay? I'll will read it (promise) and reply. If it's suitable, I'll say yes. If not, I'll say it's not suitable for our list. No amount of snake-oil salesmanship over the phone (or in person) is going to make me change my mind. It will only annoy me and take me off the work I'm focusing. (Note to writers: do yourself a favour by not annoying potential publishers.)
Yes, I'm focused when I work. Like hell, I do. In fact, I get so zoned out when I'm doing something, that I jump when the phone rings. There's nothing worse than a telephone call to interrupt a creative thought process. Now, double that with the annoying sales pitch from the other end and my endless struggle to remain polite. Triple that for time required for recovery and getting back to work, usually 20 minutes. Now, calculate the amount of productive time wasted.
Multitasking? I don't believe that's even possible. (Sorry, fire-fighting is not multitasking. It's only one task -- passing monkeys around. See above.) I like to do only one thing at a time and give it all. (But that doesn't mean I cannot work on five different projects simultaneously -- when I'm on one, the others don't remain in my head; I have an on/off that works.)
Okay, a confession: I was tempted like hell when the iPhone first came out, because I am a gadget junkie, and have been an Apple user since the late seventies. But, was it something I wanted? If truth be told, I was quite disappointed with my favourite tech company. It was like the time when Bobby McFerrin sold out and went commercial with Don't Worry Be Happy, and all the plebeians lapped it up, having never heard of his Blue Note records.
I now have an iPod Touch, which is really an iPhone without the phone. Problem solved.
