I hate pretty much everything about a cell phone. I hate the way they look, the way they sound… the fact that they interrupt your free time, going off when you’re in the middle of a nice dinner. I’ll try to explain better.

Let’s talk about the device itself and pretend that I did like cell phones in general. Nobody is close to making a good cell phone in my opinion. They are all complete garbage. I don’t want to run “apps” on my phone. I don’t want internet on my phone. That’s why I have a computer. I have pretty specific requirements in a “dream” phone:
1) Contact list (names, phone numbers, address, email).
2) Ability to call someone and talk with them.
3) Ability to turn off crap like the internet, calendar and MP3 players so they don’t show up in the UI.
4) Can close the phone, put it in my pocket, and not worry about accidentally calling someone or having the phone start the MP3 player or have it open the internet.
5) I do NOT want a camera on my phone.

You’d think that being a month away from 2011 these 5 basic requirements could be met, but it’s not even close.
1) The contact list sucks on non-smart phones. I can store home, work, fax… pick a custom stupid ringtone or picture.
2) I can talk to people without issue. Glad this works at least.
3) You can’t turn off internet or delete the included programs. If you accidentally open the internet, you get charged however many dollars per kilobit. Why can’t I turn off texting (the ability to be texted and to text someone)?
4) Manufacturers always put buttons on the outside of the folding phones. There is always some kind of partial lock feature which does NOT work. How about, if it’s closed, don’t do anything at all. Period.
5) It’s really hard to find phones without cameras. They exist, but are difficult to find.

Those are some reasons why I hate the physical phone itself. The only thing I hate more than the bare bones phones are smart phones like the iPhone or the Android. All of the same stupid problems above except you pay a lot more for them and their data plan. At least you can pay for stupid programs that make fart sounds, right?

What I hate the most is how cell phone usage is becoming acceptable in our social lives. Over the years, texting has become extremely popular. People are texting at the dinner table, texting while they are sitting on the toilet, texting while they are driving. Are we really that ignorant? It’s becoming acceptable to stop whatever you are doing and type into your phone, instead of participating in real life.

I was looking through my wedding photos and my in-laws (my wife’s siblings) were on their phone in most of the photos. They don’t need the phone for business reasons, like being on-call… there isn’t any emergency going on. Just put the phone down already. Every single day someone’s phone plays into my conversation with them. When someone is at the table eating and texting, or answering a phone call during dinner, or telling me to “hold on” during a conversation so they can tend to their phone, they might as well have told me “F**k you”.

Then of course there’s the pure obnoxiousness of a phone. Sitting at work or in the waiting room at the doctor and then hearing an ear piercing ringtone that makes me want to kill myself. Then the guy answers it and talks out loud about how he has warts on his genitals because it seems like a private conversation to him. Thanks for sharing that with everyone that can hear your conversation. Worse than anything I’ve listed so far, I’ve seen children on bicycles with training wheels… talking on a cell phone. What are they even talking about? The latest Sponge Bob episode? Why don’t they actually just go to their friends house or wait until school the next day.

The second I don’t need my cell phone for work related issues, I am going to smash it and flush it down the toilet.