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Even government services depend on you having a cell phone or access to internet in order to access services like EI.
Yet, internet (or at least decent internet) isn't available in most places in rural Alberta.
This is why Internet should be viewed as a utility and regulated as such.
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Yeah. If calling/sms was all I used my phone for, I would probably still use my old Lumia Windows phone even as the app builders stopped supporting it.
But because its for public transport tickets, accessing the local library, accessing the gym center, ordering at restaurants or food delivery, sending money to family, car navigation, syncing my exercise watch, being invited to social events, streaming my cloud saved music library, rent a city-bike, check my medicine prescriptions..
I need a phone that is up to date. How is people living without a smart phone today?
computers can do most of the checking/ordering/sending via websites, and if you live outside of a city those phone-connected infrastructure things don't exist.
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It would be fine if you had a computer, like a lot of us did before smartphones were popular.
On your list of activities, most of those are not things I use a smartphone for. I do use it to play music sometimes, and I use an open source maps app for long drives where I'm traveling to somewhere new. Otherwise I do all of that with a normal phone call or a website on the computer.
I don't install anybody's app. Fuck everybody's store apps, I won't do it. An app is not necessary for most of life's activities, and I prove it on a daily basis by not using them.
Last time I went to a nice restaurant, they wanted me to check in at the front on a tablet. I went through the motions until it wanted my cell phone number to alert me when a table was ready. I canceled the process and refused to give them my cell phone number. The host / receptionist was not happy but was able to accommodate our simple request of getting a table anyway.
All you have to do is just not participate in the data collection by saying "no" to that stuff. It's easy when you get used to that as a default stance. I'm still able to do everything I want to without all that invasive bullshit.
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I leave my phone at home sometimes. There's always something that comes up, but in the end I've realized it doesn't actually matter that much.
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It is basically impossible in this day and age. Similar with credit cards. I have been using a LightPhone for 2 years and before that a Cosmos 3 flip phone for 5 years. Currently 7 years off smartphones and I’ll never go back, but I don’t see how a young person can do it right now. Just doesn’t seem possible and i hate that.
I dont own a cellphone and get by through borrowing family member's phones or asking strangers if I can make a call if I'm out on my own, it usually works out fairly well.
However whenever I run into online services that require a phone to make an account or whatever I usually get screwed- so I usually just use a family member's phone # if I know they'll never use the site or whatever or utilize a 10 minute/fake phone # creation site if I dont care about the site or service I'm signing up for.
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this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
347 points (92.2% liked)
Showerthoughts
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