Man Doesn’t Want Cell Phone

For the last two decades, I have spent 83% of my waking hours enjoying the freedom of not owning a cellphone, 5% feeling smug about it, 2% in situations in which a phone would have been awfully convenient and 10% fielding incredulous questions. The first is always: How do you do your job? (I’m not the junior blacksmith at the Renaissance Faire; I’m a managing director at a private-equity firm.) I explain that my colleagues are very tolerant, the firm provides me with all of the latest communication tools (computer, telephone, Post-its) right at my desk, and accomplishing my daily tasks without a smartphone is not beyond human capability. Indeed, people lived this way back at the Dawn of Civilization, circa 1992.

The cell phone has existed for about 40 years now, and Gary Sernovitz has an essay in the Wall Street Journal explaining why he’s never had one, and has been happy to go without. I was sort of with him until he went into Dead Poets Society mode: “I don’t own a cellphone because I don’t want to disappoint Henry David Thoreau,” he writes. I’m sure Henry David Thoreau would want Sernovitz to have a cell phone in case of emergencies. And he’s had emergencies — he’s just borrowed other people’s cell phones when that’s happened.

Although, the new iPhones are going to be announced soon, and it’s kinda great to not care about that.

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