I can not see myself ever getting a smart phone.
People tell me smart phones are so handy. Everything is at your finger tips.
My way of thinking is that “everything is at your fingertips” is leading society down the wrong path.
One only needs to get on a commuter train to see 90% of passengers with their eyes glued to a tiny screen. Not interacting with the person beside them, not noticing the scenery as it passes every one by.
When I purchased my new vehicle last week the salesman wanted to show me how to set up my phone/blue tooth.
I said don’t worry about that. I am old school and and do not have a smart phone. I rarely listen to music and I dislike phones.
I also notice QR Codes everywhere. Without a smart phone I no not they reveal.
Do I think I am missing out?
No. Having survived this far without scanning a QR code I see no reason to start now.
Tell me some of the things available through QR codes that you think may be advantageous to this (getting there) old codger
I do have a smart phone but I don’t connect to the internet! I use it simply for phone calls and texting. Like you I have never scanned a QR code and would never download a supermarket “smart” app to my phone.
I have never understood why people feel they need to be contactable 24/7. We managed before the invention of mobile phones. A friend complained to me that her sister rings her in the early hours of the morning and asked me how she could stop her - I said to switch off her phone when she goes to bed! She was horrified and asked what would happen if people needed to contact her in an emergency - I asked how often had that happened - answer never!
OK I may be a dinosaur and others may say I am missing out on things but when on a walk I notice things around me, I hear birds singing, I say hello to people I pass and I have never walked into anything!
@Bretrick I am sharing the non-smart boat alongside you. I have absolutely no need for one of those highly intrusive time-wasting smartphones. My dumb Nokia dual SIM + torch is all that I need for my communications away from home and my landline. As I like music when out & about, I keep a preloaded micro memory card that has my playlist downloaded and that is all that I need other than calls and tests.
That little phone is cheap to run too as I’m connected to 1p Mobile that does not charge a monthly airtime rental fee … just 1p per minute outgoing calls and 1p per text message. My Nokia also has a FM radio built in, but that’s not for me.
Yep. Exactly the same. Why the need for 24 hour contactability?
FOMO (fear of missing out is consuming peoples lives.
Every one seems to be in a hurry, keeping up with the Jones. Cuing outside stores for the latest phone.
The world has gone crazy and the tech companies are gleefully taking everyone’s money.
Slow down I say.
I will be staying with my non smart phone. Why would I need anything else.
As it is, I dislike phones and chit chat.
I really only have my phone with me whilst driving just in case my car breaks down.
Have used it maybe 5 times in that scenario over the previous decade.
I am sure there were those quite happy to retain their horse when the new fangled horseless carriage appeared on the scene forcing people to travel to far places in less time but the great thing about smart phones is that they are smart. They can automate a “do not disturb” mode when you would like peace and quiet, no need to turn them off, they don’t make you do anything you don’t want to do any more than a record player made you listen to music or your car makes you drive some where.
My phone costs me $230 a year for unlimited local and international calls and texts and I am able to post this message using it as a hot spot for my computer while it plays Led Zeppelin through the soundbar in my camper. I also used it to call the ranger for the caravan park when I arrived to organise a site, my son sent me a text message, I was able to look up where the cheapest fuel is in the area and my phone smartly guided me straight to it - saving me in an instant more money than it cost to run for several days.
Yet I still managed to drive 400km in just under 5 hours without being distracted by it or bumping into things.
I can only imagine that you doubt your own ability to master the machine and fear the machine will master you but it is just a tool and you are supposed to be its master.
With respect Bruce, you obviously use your phone sensibly - but we have all seen and experienced those whose phones are almost welded to their hands, who are constantly checking them. I bet you have seen groups sitting in cafes/pubs/restaurants, all staring at their phones rather than talking to each other. I had a young man bump into me because he was staring at his phone, he then started to berate me as if it were my fault!
If I need information, I look it up on my laptop before I leave the house, I can then concentrate on what is going on around me in real life
I dont have a Smart Phone either , BUT a problem arose recently and im sure it will catch up with others soon , and this is NHS making you apply for repeat prescription on the app, First you have to make an account and apply with a Passport and Photo to prove its you , Well i had to apply through my Sons Smart phone and when he took my photo on the day it got rejected a week later , I dont look anything like my PP photo which is out of date , But within the months allowed to use it .
Eventually it got passed , and now I can use the NHS on my laptop to apply for Prescriptions and read my GP medical notes .
Im sure there is some things that would help me enormously on a Smart phone , like when im out on a day trip or walk in the countryside .There the What3 words that can help locate you in case of accident and also guiding from A to B so as not get lost …
What puts me off is having to pay monthly for a Simcard/internet . At present a 10£ top up on my pay as i go can last me 6months or more …
We shall see maybe I will or not .
Likewise, no smart phone. In fact, I rarely use it at all.
My smartphone is the only internet access, I use now
I don’t use a PC or tablet or laptop anymore because with my smartphone I don’t need to
I think smart phones are absolutely incredible, I love mine
So amazing to have a powerful computer you can carry around with you in the palm of your hand, do everything you can do on a PC on it and keep up to date with what’s going on and in touch with your tribe
I think I got into it when I used to commute to work on the train, brilliant to be able to get online, play games and chat, use it as a kindle and for audible books and music with your ear pods
You’ve got total control of how much you use it?
Just because you’ve got one doesn’t mean you’ve got to be glued to it all the time, just need to be selective, like everything else in life!
I have a pay as you talk phone & hardly use it, it has £2 left on it & that has been the amount for months.I have forgotten how to add more to it also. 
I do charge it regularly though.
I still have a land line & my calls etc are used for that. Anything else is done on my home P.C.
I have no need of a smart phone, nor do I want one.
Spot on Maree, mine is very useful but I’m in charge! 
I have a Smartphone for use at home only, It has become my homephone with superior quality to a proper homephone. It connects to my home WiFi which is paid for already. I can do texting with a QWERTY keyboard, I can receive texts with long links, click and it takes me to the site.
I do take it when in the car which is pretty rare, and haven’t yet had to call the RAC.
If I can’t sleep, it’s there on my bedside table, I google the lyrics of an old song, it sings in my head and sends me to sleep.
We had a couple of old mobiles…one could not convert say EE and the other one was for the odd text or in the vehicle when we go about just in case we could breakdown…have always had breakdown even though our vehicles are properly maintained…long story but I have seen places that I would never have seen if the vehicle had behaved…
Daughter wanted to speak with ‘Dad’ more so she gave him one of her cast offs an iphone 7, she paid for the monthly fee about £10/12 each month. We had not liked it as although good enough to sort out a PC the phone was awkward I’d say. Husband uses it more now he has had it for a year…likes looking at the jokes and he has just shown me a real funny one…but it has a swear within it that I would have too blot out…Iphones got it for free and it is better than the old phones and now have a French Orange Sim in it as buying on line a lot you get constant codes for security when you pay etc…
Remember the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s? Ya sat down to dinner and the phone starts ringing off the hook. Wants you to buy stuff.
It’s 2024 and smart phone rings constantly, Scammers!
Shut the wringer off. Use the phone like a puter, text and internet mostly except for an emergency. Games and Music are for kids.
So far I don’t see 5G as any better than 2-4G. Spottier. U end up with 2-4 G most of the time anyway. It’s like ya spend every couple of years for a better phone, you buy protection for it, it’s as fragile as granny’s wrist.
Maybe one day it won’T be droppable. Ya know magnetic elevation, can’t hit and breakability. Now the iPad, that’s a great tool but it also needs the IPhone. Haha
But leave the IPhone in a pocket and Cary the iPad in the case till you can set it on a desk or table.
I have a smartphone, I find it really handy to have. But I refuse to let it control me in any way, in that I will silence/switch off when I’m busy with something (or sat at home) and don’t want to be disturbed. I hate it when phones turn people in to Phone Zombies who wander everywhere oblivious and can’t stand it when in a cafe (for example) and people put theirs on speaker for everyone to hear, be it a conversation or some Youtube video.
They have their uses, but like everything else, it can be a curse. Trick is, not to let it overtake your life.
I have a smartphone which was bought as a gift by someone who thought i should be dragged into the twenty first century, bless him!
Not had it long, but i take it everywhere with me, even though i never use it when i go visiting, shopping, or socially.
By the way, before smartphones were around, people didn’t interact much with their fellow commuters, as most were either reading books, newspapers, gazing out the window, (if not in a dusty, dingy underground tunnel as i was mostly) or sleeping! 
Yes I have 4 or 5 Smartphones, the problem being because they constantly update the IOS they become obsolete and you get the message that the Apps don’t work.
My iPhone, MacBook and iPad are great.
Smart time saving applications add to one’s productivity in life and work.
I developed an App for work and I use PowerApps often to automate mundane tasks and powerBI to build dashboards which provide high level data stories for busy managers.
Progress isn’t all bad.
I don’t disagree but so what? Ask yourself “Are you one of those people?” if not what is the problem?