Cell Phone Celebrates 25 Years…
October 24, 2008 by Godfather
“Can you hear me now?” “I can’t get a signal!”
It is hard to believe the everyday cell phone is celebrating its 25th birthday much to the dismay of dependent users everywhere. That right, sometime shortly before October 1983 millions of people had to either a find a payphone or simply hold topics of conversation for the dinner table (gasp).
The first cell phone was the Motorola DynaTAC. It weighed in at a stealthy 2.5 pounds and had a $4,000 price tag. 25 years later, phones such as the Apple iPhone hit the market with GPS, music, and games.
How far have we come?
In 1984 there were approximately 12,000 subscribers. Today (in the U.S.) there are about 262 million cell phone users and nearly 50% of children between 8 and 12 years old have cell phones.
In 2008 apparently talking to someone became more annoying than texting someone. Earlier in the year the average person sent and received 357 text messages while only making and receiving 204 phone calls.
It seems you can’t go to a public area without seeing at least a quarter of the people talking on a cell phone. In Covert-Ops fashion, many of them have a Bluetooth earpiece, which can often confuse them with crazy homeless people speaking to themselves.
I love the conveniences of a cell phone (and I do find the iPhone dreamy) but I could do without the rest of the drama. Picking out a minute package at your local provider is more confusing than picking a meal at Cheesecake Factory.
I think I want to go back in time and visit Bob Barnett (president of Ameritech who made the first call) and kick his inner child in the ass.
Then again, maybe I will just text him instead…
This is a great post. I am still proud of myself for holding off until going to college (in 2002) to buy a cell phone. Even then, I only paid for about 14 minutes per month. (It was just an emergency phone). Eventually, I got sucked into the craze and was the first of my friends and family to buy a camera phone. Happy to say, I am still not one of those people who can’t wait for phones to be surgically implanted into their hand. Sometimes I “lose” my phone just to have a break. I know people who have real panic attacks when they can’t find theirs.
I used to have a cell phone a couple of years ago, no more though. While I miss having it in emergencies I really don’t miss it at all.
What gets me though is how between cell phones and the internet, basic courtesy and manners seem to have been flushed down the toilet!
It’s amazing how so many can’t go 30 minutes without talking to someone on their phone (and they call smokers addicts?). When I’m sitting on the bus I really am not interested in your drug rehab or how lousy your lover was last night. Nor am I interested in the fight you had with whomever over something so stupid it wasn’t even worth mentioning let alone fighting about.
I went to a restaurant in NYC back in 2003 that actually had a soundproof glass room built for anyone who just “had to take this call” so as not to annoy the other diners with their boring too loud discussion.
Cell phones are handy and nice to have; too bad most people haven’t the manners to know how to actually use them.
My wife has a cell phone…I’ll admit it came in handy when our recently ex-car broke down in the middle of the night in the rain…other than that I despise the damned things. As for being more confusing to pick out a package than ordering a meal at cheesecake factory, I should hope so. I ate at the Cheesecake factory once…they should’ve stuck with the desserts only.
This site rocks!
I think we are digressing. We are all in a hurry nowadays.