You make the world through the way you act

Once upon a time, in early 2004, I would sit in the hallway of my high school before class started, lounging against a wall with my good friend Chrissy, who, more often than not, would be scrolling through pop-punk songs on her iPod. She was among the first of my friends to own one. At the time, I was still a staunch Walkman user, and was adamant about the fact that I would never switch over to this flashy, expensive new contraption. I remember thinking to myself that I liked my CDs, with their deliberate and finite presentation of songs, and was wary of owning a device that would let me simply cherry-pick my favorites while taking away the necessity of listening to an entire album from start to finish.

My anti-iPod position now seems quaint, for obvious reasons. By Christmas 2006, I'd joined the iPod-owning masses, and today, I'd probably struggle not to appear visibly amused if I saw someone carrying around a Walkman. It'd be like watching someone print a paper saved on a floppy disc.

And yet it seems that I haven't completely grown out of my Amish-flavored sensibilities, seeing as, at this very moment, I have no desire to own an iPhone (or any other smart phone), and will put off using one for as long as possible.

My antagonistic sentiment is not uncommon, and the rationales that I give for my resistance would probably be shared by any other crotchety, technophobic killjoy you know. Some of them include:

1) "For the love of God, leave me alone."
Because I'm reachable 24/7 by text or phone call, and because I'm on my computer for much of every day, I already feel as though too much of my life is dominated by virtual, rather than live, communication and stimulation. Beyond that, I feel viscerally offended that it somehow isn't enough that I'm already constantly available by call or text -- that I need to be able to access my e-mail or Facebook during the [at most] 6-hour periods that I might be away from my computer during the day. I imagine these kind of implicit social demands are the kinds of things that make earth houses seem appealing.

2) Big Brother
This is the security/privacy argument. When it comes to internet privacy, my attitude leans Spicoli; I'm not terribly concerned. Cell phone privacy, however, is a different animal, mostly because your smart phone knows where you sleep. And eat. And travel. If NCIS is to be believed, all cell phones are traceable to a certain extent, but smart phones are loaded with software capable of revealing so much more about you, particularly the more you engage with it. The most recent issue of TIME, for example, described a new iPhone app called "Highlight," which they explain is a "people discovery" program that "reveal[s] real-life connections you didn't know you had" -- it "works by rummaging through your Facebook account to see whom you know and what topics you like. Then it uses your iPhone's GPS to inform you when... a former co-worker's buddy is in your immediate vicinity or when a good-looking patron who loves the same bands you do sits down at the other end of the bar." This is just one app, of course, but the growing market for these sorts of apps suggest to me that it's only a matter of time before smart phones double as stalker-candy.

3) The Ms. Manners Objection
Say you're having lunch with a friend, and you suddenly feel the impulse to check your Facebook. Despite centuries of Western social codes that indicate that you should ignore your narcissistic whims and keep your attention directed at your friend, "dropping your head and fixing your eyes on your lap, presumably at your phone" has somehow become an accepted unspoken social gesture, indicating that your flesh-and-blood friend needs to pause their human conversation and wait patiently for you to finish and zone in again. I resist iPhone ownership in part because I'd like to avoid a world in which social situations might regularly require me to yell, "Eyes on me!" like a first-grade teacher.

4) Going Pinko
I've become irritated by the recent influx of stores offering coupons or discounts that assume smart-phone ownership as part of the advertising. Some places offer discounts if you "check in" to their location, or if you scan an available bar code upon arrival. Other places will send coupons to your smart phone, which the cashier can then scan when you check out. As a rabid bargain shopper and non-smart phone owner, this trend sends me into a completely irrational Marxist frenzy. "Oh, so only the rich deserve access to coupons? The people who can't afford smart phones somehow aren't worthy of your discounts?" I could probably personally afford a smart phone, so my pinko angst is mostly inappropriate, but I still find it questionable that a good chunk of the advertising industry is treating smart phone ownership as the norm, as opposed to a privilege of bourgeois commodity-fetishists -- or at least people who can afford to shell out for a data plan.

5) I don't like change.
I'd be lying if this wasn't part of it. Getting used to an iPhone sounds exhausting.

Considering that most of this list already sounds, even to me, like a denture-soaking octogenarian complaining about hoodlums and waxing nostalgic about penny candy, I assume that resistance is futile, and that I'm protesting a cultural shift already halfway (or more) complete. I'll be unsurprised if in as little as a year, I come around to the benefits of smart phones (I can stop getting lost in the stupid winding streets of Boston!) and laugh at the stubborn-mindedness of this blogtacular whine-fest. In a short amount of time, I'll probably have already turned my change-resistant eye to the next preposterous technological development.

Even if that happens, though, I'm pretty sure that, while happily engaging in the next stage of my gadget-enlightenment, I'll still think Twitter is stupid.