Smart phones seemed like a great idea in 2007. Wouldn't it be cool to have a device in your pocket that did everything? A palm sized device that connected you to the entire world?

And obviously, the world agreed to some degree. Cell phones are ubiquitous. They are signifiers of identity. They are connections to culture, family, and work. They are maps, emergency calls, music players, planners, secretaries, and tools for intense discussions about anything you care about.

But in 2024, the idea of the smart phone doesn't seem so smart to me.

I remember in the mid 2010s when a small but vocal group of people said that cell phones were a fad. That cell phones would come and go. That they were a fashion craze like Jordan sneakers or horn rimmed glasses or skinny jeans. I work in tech, so I remember thinking that those people were crazy and out of touch. Cell phones were, very clearly to me at the time, the way of the future. So how could anyone possibly think that they were a fad?

Well, I think it's time to acknowledge that smart phones are a design failure in many respects.

One device that does everything. One point of failure.

On Monday, November 18th, 2024, I RTOed. I Returned-To-Office. I transferred to a new position within the company I work for and I transferred back to the office. On Monday it all went relatively well. The traffic wasn't too bad, and I enjoyed seeing everyone in person.

On Tuesday, November 19th, 2024, I dropped my phone while getting out of my car in the work parking lot.

I hardly need to elaborate on this fact, because everyone knows what this implies. My screen shattered and I was instantly plunged into darkness. I couldn't text anyone. I couldn't check my email. I had to drive to places on memory. Worst of all, I lost access to my calendar.

Could I make it to an event on Sunday? I literally had no idea until I could get to a computer to pull up my Google Calendar.

When you run your life from one device, you have one point of failure. If that one thing breaks, then you lose everything. I lost my podcasts, the entertainment for my commute. I lost my music for my morning runs. I lost my calendar. I lost my group text threads. I lost social media, because my two factor auth was tied to my phone.

I have insurance on my phone, but I thought it was wasteful to replace the phone. I decided to wait for the shop to get the single part that I needed to replace - the screen. So I lost all this for around a week, and I still don't have a personal phone as I write this.

I wish I had a camera separate from my phone. I wish I had a music player separate from my phone. I wish I had a paper planner. Why was I keeping everything on one device?

Always connected and always available.

As I get older, I find that the best and worst aspects of something are often the same thing. This is definitely true in the case of cell phones.

Cell phones have a data connection that is always available. At any time you can access Wikipedia and Google and Facebook and your family. At any abritrary time you can access everything that is out there in the wide world.

But the connection goes both ways. The world can also access you at any time.

I know I'm not alone when I say that I don't want to be available all the time.

I don't want my work to be able to contact me when I'm eating dinner. I don't want to get notifications about whatever insane thing Trump did when I'm out for a run. I don't want my phone to vibrate when I'm taking a picture.

Jack of all trades. Master of none.

And this gets to the heart of the issue.

Cell phones do everything poorly. The experience sucks.

Do I really need layers of privacy on my music player? Do I really want social sharing built into my camera? Do you think that being able to take Zoom calls from the park is a good thing?

There are just so many spurious layers on all experiences on the cell phone.

For instance, to take a picture on my phone I need to wake the phone up by pressing a button, then swipe up to bring up the login, then enter my pin, then pull up the camera app, then dismiss the notification about my storage being full. Then I can finally take a picture.

You don't even need to turn on an analog camera. Just point and click. Even a digital camera is just pressing the button once to wake it up, then pressing it again to take a picture.

And don't get me started on music players that need to be connected to the internet. Just... why?

It's good to change. It's good to learn from your mistakes.

Our society hates moving backward. We hate changing our minds or trying another path.

But why?

I think it's good to grow and learn. I think it's good to admit when you make a mistake AND LEARN FROM THAT MISTAKE. I think it's good to look at your choices critically and ask yourself whether you could do something different or better.

So I am re-evaluating the whole concept of a cell phone. I miss my old, dumb, mp3 player. I miss my paper calendar / organizer. I miss my digital camera.

For now, I will wait for them to replace the screen on my phone.

But I am starting to wonder if the people who called cell phones a fad were right.