Oh, yes yes yes, absolutely, there's a lot of that too. The idea that we have to be online at all times, no interruptions in connectivity. Email can come in at any time. Status updates, likes, upvotes; constant barrage of information. Yuck.

Y'know, our science fiction mostly didn't anticipate this. In William Gibson's fiction, you jacked into the matrix and you jacked out when you were done. Now we never jack out.

Whenever I walk around while my laptop is turned off and all I have is an offline Sansa Clip Zip running Rockbox for some music, I feel like I'm rocking out in Zion, unplugged and free.

> I'm 24, have never had a phone.

How do you even?

More seriously: not even a old Nokia 3310 or some other dumbphone to use in case of, I don't know, emergency, or calling someone to pick you up, etc?

My only phone is a beaten up Android thing with pretty much nothing installed on it but WhatsApp just for quick stuff like "ok, let's meet at $place" or "I'll be late". I'm not sure how I could do without.

This is such a common response.

You are aware that only very recently is not having a phone as weird as refusing to wear shoes, right? This is the one thing that bugs me the most about modern western society. People just think it's unthinkable to not have a phone and come up with all sorts of anxieties and emergencies that can come up without one.

Like I've said before, it really isn't that big a deal. Life is not as full of emergencies as phones have made us feel it is.

It's different when society and people expect you to have a mobile phone. It's not weird to not have one in 1975 because no one else did.

What other people expect me to do is way down the list on the reasons I do things.

I have a phone for emergencies, it's never off silent, I don't answer the phone I ring people back when it's convenient for me or preferably I text.

People almost get offended with the "You never answer your phone!"..well yes that's because I'm busy and the automatic assumption that I should drop everything to answer your call is a little arrogant no?.

Family and close friends know that if it's important/urgent they can text "ring me" and I'll ring them back straightaway everyone else rings out (I don't have voicemail either) as I found that if people can't leave a voicemail they'll email me whatever it was they wanted..which they should have done anyway.

This constant push for everyone to be always available at the beck and call of other people is insane and I refuse to go a long with it, I grew up without a mobile phone (didn't get my first one til I was 20 in 2000 and I miss those days).

I need to adopt this. My phone is a source of anxiety and I have no idea why. When my phone rings I literally get a pang of angst, like "oh shit what now". Maybe there is some other underlying issue, but I also hardly answer the phone. I absolutely do not have voice mail, and I have been considering making a messaging app that only notifies you of new messages on the hour each hour or some custom setting.

Perhaps a more customizable phone where only approved numbers can call and the rest are forced to a message saying something like "your number is not approved for this action, please leave an SMS and the person will get back to you when appropriate." I would love that.

> Perhaps a more customizable phone where only approved numbers can call and the rest are forced to a message saying something like "your number is not approved for this action, please leave an SMS and the person will get back to you when appropriate." I would love that.

You can do this already on Android, if you star them in your contacts and then put the phone into "Priority Only" silent mode, it'll ring for them and everyone else it mutes.

I found that just putting the phone into silent and ignoring it until I'm ready to deal with the calls was the better approach though, it took a week or so before I realized I was checking it less and less (I'd been trained like a skinnerbox) until now I look at it 2-3 times a day.

I should add that we don't value aloneness enough in our current society, the ability to spend an entire day undisturbed by anyone else is a valuable and prescious thing, been alone with your own thoughts is a refreshing experience, it gives you chance to stop and take stock and think about what is going on with your life, for some reason we prize "busyness" at the expense of just about everything else, I don't see any virtue in been "busy", I see purpose in getting done the things that are important to me.

While people are free to do as they please, allowing push notifications is more a courtesy to others than a service to one's self.

It's a courtesy to others at the expense of oneself and sometimes that expense is simply too high.