After 20 years, 85 percent of adult Americans have cellphones, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. According to the Federal Communications Commission, cellphones caught on faster than cable TV and personal computers although, by some accounts, broadband Internet service was adopted faster.
Those who still do not have them, according to Pew, tend to be older or less educated Americans or those unable to afford phones. “These are people who have a bunch of other struggles in their lives and the expense of maintaining technology and mastering it is also pretty significant for them,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew project.
But there is also a smaller subset of adults who resist cellphones simply because they do not want them. They resent the way that ring tones, tiny keyboards and screens disrupt face-to-face conversation. They savor their moments alone and prize the fact that no one knows how to reach them.
via www.nytimes.com
So if 15 percent of adult Americans don't have cell phones that would really mean that roughly 34,500,000 people don't have them but rather than write about how that communications divide affects their lives the NYT has instead found these three people to profile:
- a 34 year old tech blogger who doesn't have a landline either (oh my!) but who use Skype IM and e-mail. Handsome picture though he doesn't look to wacky and far from savoring his moments alone seems very reachable if you follow the detailed instructions he leaves with people. Those crazy bloggers...Apartment Therapy should pay him more.
-a 32 year old who likes to bother her friends neighbor by getting his dogs to bark so they can alert her friend on the fifth floor. what other crazy things does she do to get by, how does she arrange dinner? Maybe her friend should just give her a key.
- and a (just guessing here) slightly hippyish romantic who finds being always reachable "scary" and who prefers letters.
None of these perfectly nice seeming people professed to the "... smug satisfaction of marching to a different ring tone." It's almost as if the author had a premise and the prose and just slotted these little vignettes in.
