It might be an age-related dellusion but Bill felt that time was speeding up
since the pandemic. Without a new earth-shattering gizmo, an overseas vacation,
a family reunion, a job switch, or a foot race, two years were gone. A day still
consisted of 24 hours but didn't seem to pack as much life as it used to. Cheap
minutes must have been printed somewhere and diluted the worth of the hour. On
the flip side, would the average lifespan be accordingly inflated? He was not sure.
In the midst of unrelenting change, Bill had tried to hold onto the past, which
was like trying to dodge a bulldozer. He had resisted the smartphone, e.g., from
day one and it was not because he once worked for Nokia. In front of a laptop
all day, he never saw the need for intelligence in a phone. From his point of
view, all the smartness in the device worked to exploit human weaknesses for
profit at the cost of people's attention span and maybe even self-esteem. He had
stuck with dumb phones as if the smart ones were never invented.
Two years ago, he had to give up his $29 2G flip phone when he moved to this
city on the Peninsula as the old network had been demolished here long ago. His
solution was a $49 3G phone. The signals were sketchy at a few spots but he
didn't mind: except for his wife and kid, almost no one called him and the
device was used mainly for receiving one-time access codes for work. Besides,
whoever did call could always leave a message. The phone had served him well
until lately T-Mobile announced plans to once again ditch older technology.
After a 20-minute research, Bill purchased online an $89 4G Easyfone which came
in three days. Without a moving part, it looked sturdy and felt snug in his
palm. With large buttons, a camera, a torch light, long battery life, and an LED
screen where one could see the time at the push of a button, the phone was
exactly what he needed. It took him a 15-minute walk to the nearby T-Mobile
store where he upgraded to a small-form SIM card for $10. He had to explain to
the guys there that this was for someone else. Other than that, business was
done in 10 minutes and, until they tear down 4G, he got a new lease on phone
life. Phones had become smart around 2007 and therefore Bill had stayed dumb for
15 years.
