CAN I CALL YOU BACK?

As an avowed disliker of the telephone, the following was bound to catch my eye: "Overuse of mobiles by university students may have be related to lower grades, drinking problems and more sexual partners, a study says. In a survey of more than 3,400 people taking degrees in the US, those who said they had problems with the amount of time they spent on their phones also reported having more sexual partners. But they also were more likely to report anxiety or depression."
End quote.

Source: 'Excessive' student mobile phone use -- BBC

I still have a land-line. The people who call me are Stan the neighborhood airduct man, surveys, Indian computer scammers, and recorded messages telling me Microsoft no longer operates in my country.
I do not own a cellphone.

Neither I nor my Aspy apartment mate call out much -- her more than me, because of shopping habits -- and I've called my bank maybe once in the last three years.


I can understand the usefulness of a mobile device, as, for instance, a quick means for looking up data, an internet research tool, but for most social purposes it may not be as marvelous as many people believe. Lower grades, alcoholism, promiscuity, and mental problems.
These are hardly benefits.


There you are, having rough drunken sex with a deranged person whose past history of sleeping around and using drugs you don't know, when the phone rings. It's a depressive partner from five or ten relationships ago, who is failing remedial reading, and needs your help.


There is nothing in it for you.


Your response? A text message, a photo of a burrito, and a cat picture.




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