By MELISSA WELLHAM
This is my new phone:
After my beloved smartphone passed on to a better place last week, I was required to find a substitute phone to tide me over until my smartphone came back from some far-flung country where it had been sent for repairs. For about five minutes, I even thought that using a dumbphone might be an interesting challenge.
You see, people who hate smartphones like to romanticise Nokia bricks.
“I don’t need all those new fandangled apps and internet access,” they cry, “All I need is a phone that can send text messages and make phone calls.”
And then they pull out their portable record player and start playing some vinyl.
If you’re anything like me, maybe you’ve always felt a little intimidated by these people. Maybe the fact that they can’t access Facebook at every minute of the day is a testament to the strength of their character? Maybe their “dumbphone” is a sign of their almost Buddhist-like commitment to the rejection of material goods? Maybe their Nokia makes them a better person?
Well, after the last seven days, I think I can safely call bullshit on the supposed benefits of a dumbphone.
I’ll never listen to anyone who romanticises a retro, brick-like mobile phone again. Here’s why:
1. It takes about 23 minutes to write a text message.
Does everyone remember the pain of the 2000s, where you had to press the ‘7’ key four times, just to make the letter ‘s’ show up for your message?
To type the phrase ‘Hey Rosie’, for example, I have to hit the keys 21 times. TWENTY-ONE TIMES.