To over-40 types like Kevin Drum and myself, the primary function of a telephone is self-evident: Talking to other people. Young whippersnapper Matt Yglesias reminds us, though, that mindset is so 20th Century:
Personally, I don’t like talking on the phone very much. My old Razr’s primary function was sending and receiving SMS messages. My new iPhone’s primary function is probably as an MP3 player, with SMSing as the key secondary function. Beyond that, I use the Web browser and the Google Maps function a lot.
I don’t like talking on the phone much, either, but that’s mostly what I use mine for. I was a ridiculously late adopter of the cell phone and still don’t have a camera or MP3 player built into mine; nor do I want one. For that matter, I don’t use SMS and don’t see the appeal. The handful of text messages I get are mostly spam. And, as I’ve mentioned previously, I don’t get Twitter and its variants.
I finally broke down and got a Blackberry a couple months ago to check email and do the occasional Web search, both of which are handy since I spend most of my waking hours online. The technology is still sufficiently antiquated (it doesn’t handle javascript or render multi-column pages properly) and my eyes degrading fast enough that surfing on a tiny screen is mostly a utility rather than a pastime, though.
