How the Smartphone has Impacted Our Lives (I No Longer Memorize Important Phone Numbers)
by Tom Leddo
Vice President
Do you still memorize important phone numbers?
Personally I know my cell phone number, my wife’s, and maybe one or two others. Oh yeah, I still know the number to the rotary phone mounted on the kitchen wall of my childhood home because I was taught to sing it in kindergarten in case I ever got lost. Speaking of which, my mom had a really, really, long cord on that phone so it could stretch out of the kitchen to the couch in the adjoining room where we had a TV with only three channels.
I would venture to guess that today most people don’t memorize many more phone numbers than I have. Why should we? We have various forms of one-touch dialing and even voice dialing to eliminate the need.
But, at the risk of sounding like Lemony Snicket, what would happen if there were an emergency or you lost your phone? Well, according to Connie Rim, a Lease Consultant at Md7 in San Diego, you might have a problem. As she tells it…
Years ago I moved to Las Vegas to live with some friends. Upon immediate arrival, I decided to venture solo to the Las Vegas strip. As I returned to my car, I realized I lost my iPhone. I panicked as I suddenly found myself without knowing my friends’ phone numbers, directions, or my new address. All the information I needed was in my Smartphone. After several hours of backtracking (and very sore feet), I was very lucky that someone had turned in my iPhone to one of the casino’s security offices. Needless to say, I avoid being in such a vulnerable position by simply memorizing a few important phone numbers – and, of course, my address.
iCloud wasn’t around then, but if it happens to Connie today, she can simply log into her account from any computer in the world and pull up her key info. Tip: Make sure you know how to access your backup data before you need it.
In emergency situations, finding a place to access your iCloud account is not always easy or timely. Like the time my wife locked her keys, phone and our newborn son in the car at the park. She borrowed the phone of a jogger who was passing by and began dialing me the old fashion way. The only problem was that I didn’t recognize the jogger’s number in my caller-ID so I ignored it until she dialed it four or five times over and over.
Well… even if we fail to memorize a few key numbers, our modern problems are still better than only having a single phone for a family with five kids that was affixed to a wall.
