The Mighty Cell Phone

[00:00:00] It's revolutionized our communications. It's changed how we socially interact with each other. And it's even affecting our mental health. Let's talk about it this time on Wyce Thoughts.

[00:00:17] It's time for a virtual campfire sit-down with Terry Wyce. Welcome to Wyce Thoughts. Hey everybody, welcome to our virtual campfire sit-down. Welcome to another fun-filled star-studded, well, all right, fun-filled episode of Wyce Thoughts. I'm Terry Wyce.

[00:00:42] I'm so glad you decided to spend some of your valuable time with me here on this week's episode of Wyce Thoughts. And remember, visit the website, please, won't you? WyceThoughts.com. There you can listen to each and every episode of this podcast. Leave us a review. We would really love it if you could leave us a review and make sure you share us with your friends. Also, stop by Purple Pit, purplepitstudios.com. There you can check out other podcasts that are offered.

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[00:01:41] Just search for Wyce Thoughts on YouTube. And if you want to contact me on X, it is at Terry Weiss. And don't forget, I do voiceover work, audiobook work, commercials, et cetera, yada, yada, yada. Just got done finishing up a project here not too long ago for a nice little old town in Texas. And of an event they're having, which they were great to work with. Really great to work with.

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[00:02:35] That's right. You can show people your wonderful vocabulary, how big your brain is. It's time for this week's wordsmith word of the episode, and it is called... Legerity. Oh, what is it? One more time, please. Artificial intelligence created voice. Legerity. Legerity. L-E-G-E-R-I-T-Y. Legerity. And it is a noun. It means alert quickness of mind or body.

[00:03:03] Let's hear it in a few sentences and how it's used. The kittens played with each other with a sense of legerity. The presenter needed legerity to handle the multiple disruptions to his speech. And one more. My dad still shows incredible legerity when he plays with the grandkids. All right. This week's wordsmith word of the episode is legerity. L-E-G-E-R-I-T-Y. I think I spelled it wrong. L-E-G-E-R-I-T-Y. Legerity.

[00:03:29] And it's pronounced legerity. Alert quickness of the mind or body. So now you can impress your friends with your big fat brain and tell them you heard it here on the Weiss Thoughts podcast. Won't you please? So let's get into the topic at a hand, shall we? What we're going to talk about this on this episode of Weiss Thoughts.

[00:03:54] And, you know, it's something that we've all, well, I would say probably 95% of us, especially in the United States of America have. And we carry it with us. I mean, it's like drawing breath for some people. And I must admit, I must admit, I use it a lot more than I ever thought I would. And we're talking about the almighty cellular phone. Yes.

[00:04:25] And how it's transformed our lives in so many ways that we never would have imagined. And I can remember when these gadgets first started coming out in the late 70s, 80s, really started picking up in the 90s. And then once the 2000s hit, it started growing exponentially with the cell phone. I can still remember my father getting his first, quote, unquote, air quote, car phone. It was hardwired.

[00:04:54] You actually had to buy the unit, which was like, I think, $1,200 or $1,500 or something. Then you had to take it to places that, you know, specialized in installing car stereos and such. And what they did is you made an appointment. And they hardwired this unit into your vehicle. It was usually hardwired into a console, like the center console of your car.

[00:05:19] Back in the day, a lot of cars had center consoles, you know, in the middle there of the front seat. And it would be hardwired into there, hardwired into your car's electrical system. And there was an antenna attached to your vehicle. Now, some of them started out pretty darn big. And then they got smaller and smaller, you know, within a five to, I say, eight-year period. The antenna started, you know, getting smaller.

[00:05:46] But I remember the first one, you know, and it was just like almost like your regular old, well, for those of you who are listening that can recall that with me, the house phone. You picked it up off the center console. It had a keypad on it for dialing in a little LCD-type screen. And you would hold it up to your ear, and it was corded, you know, inside the car. So there was no such thing as hands-free. You know, that came a few years after. Then there was the bag phones where you didn't need a vehicle. You can carry around this little suitcase thing here.

[00:06:16] And it was a bag, and you would carry this around, and they lasted a few hours. I think it was like maybe four or five hours or something like that or six hours. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. You can email me at terry at weisethoughts.com. But it lasted, I think, about four to six hours, the battery in this bag, and you would carry it around and take it out. A good example of this is watch the original film Lethal Weapon with Danny Glover and Mel Gibson towards the beginning of the movie when, you know, there's an incident happening.

[00:06:46] Anyway, Danny Glover's on a bridge, and he's got this bag thing. He's talking on his phone, and he's got this little bag thing he's holding in his hand. That was the earliest forms of a cell phone, my friends. Then you got rid of the bag, and it was all in one unit, but they were big and bulky. It was like carrying around a cordless phone in your home, the old cordless phones. They were a little bulkier than that. There was no really putting those in a pocket, per se. Everyone knew you had a cell phone. It was like a brick. They used to call them brick phones.

[00:07:15] And then things, you know, technology started advancing, and we went on to, they started getting a little bit smaller and more compact and having an actual, instead of an LED screen on them and these LCDs, they went to a different type of, like, one of the first colored phones that came out. But the big thing was when texting started. Now, I can remember texting.

[00:07:41] They used to charge you, like, 20 cents a text that you got in and out, or I think it was, or it started a nickel, and then it went to a dime, then it went to 20 cents, you know, and then remember, how many of you remember this out there with certain plans, like big companies like Verizon? Remember free nights and weekends? Nights and weekends for Verizon started after nine o'clock during the week, and free weekends, you could call anybody. And then there was on the cell phone plans, it was friends and family.

[00:08:09] So in other words, anybody who was on our network, i.e. Verizon or whatever company you were with, as long as they had, like, if it was two AT&T customers calling each other, you didn't have to pay at all. There was, you know, there was no extra charge. It was just your regular monthly bill, so on and so forth. Now, throughout this process early on in the cell phone industry, you had to pay for the phone, which, you know, was pretty exorbitant.

[00:08:36] You know, the phones were kind of expensive, you know, $600, $700, $800, and they were bulky. And you were then locked into a contract with that carrier for a certain amount of time. You had to stay with them for either one year or two years. You know, most of them went to two years and made it universal. A couple carriers came out of the woodwork and tried to do the one year. You know, there were companies like in the northeast, you know, eastern half of New York State or western half of New York State. There was Buffalo Cellular, Cellular One, et cetera.

[00:09:04] But then the big boys started moving in, like Verizon, because Verizon actually started as a home long-distance company and a telephone company. Okay. But then they, you know, started, they saw the cell phone thing and they had some forward-thinking people there. And they really latched onto the cell phone as well. You know, AT&T, you had Sprint, which is now in the graveyard with a lot of other, you know, companies that sprung up.

[00:09:34] You know, there's Virgin Mobile. Nowadays, there's so many, you know, different offshoots of cellular companies. Even your cable company is a cell phone carrier now. You got AT&T. You got Sprint. You know, you got Verizon. You got T-Mobile. Or you don't have Sprint anymore. I'm sorry. You have T-Mobile are the biggest ones. T-Mobile and Verizon and AT&T, I think, are the top three. And then probably your Spectrum or Comcast company, which is offering cell phone service. But they piggyback on these carriers, okay?

[00:10:04] And then you got things like Virgin Mobile, Mint Mobile, you know, all these, Boost. And all these just basically sublet their third-party, in some cases, fourth-party carriers that sublet the airwaves. But anyway, getting back to what we're talking about, you know, the impact of this pocket-sized now technology, because the phone started getting smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller. That was the thing for the longest time.

[00:10:29] But then when texting and the ability with, like, the advent of the iPhone and the BlackBerry, that you could go on the Internet when the Internet started really taking off. And then people said, well, wow, man, I can, you know, I don't have to carry a computer or a laptop around me. I can start doing things on my phone. And then they started developing apps for phones. And then the phones went from being smaller to getting bigger, bigger, bigger.

[00:10:54] And now we're back to carrying around, you know, billboards, some of us in our pockets. It's like, wow, man, you know, you might as well just carry around a laptop and put it up to your ear, in some cases, these phones. But, you know, I must be honest, okay? I have to be honest with you because, you know, I don't bullshit on when I talk to you. I enjoy my cell phone.

[00:11:17] I do a lot on my cell phone, a lot of things, from messaging, checking out social media, keeping in touch with people, you know, looking up information, getting information. You know, I've done some banking over the phone and things like that, you know, on the cell phone and that encrypted banking. I'm shooting photos, videos, recording audio. There's a lot.

[00:11:45] Now, here's one thing I don't do, but I know a lot of people do, especially the youngsters nowadays. They love to play games on their phone. I'm not a gamer. I've never really been a gamer. I mean, I had maybe a short stint of maybe four or five years back in the, I would say back in the early 2000s where I was a gamer. Back, remember when PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, okay? That, yeah, that was my stint into gaming.

[00:12:10] But then when my kids got older and moved out, the systems were left here and they, you know, they didn't take them because they were on the PlayStation 4 and 5 and Xbox, whatever we're up to on Xbox and everything. I've just never been a gamer. Now, I don't, and again, I'm not slamming you gamers out there or anything like that. But, I mean, I've watched some of these new games that they have and holy mackerel, the technology on these things, it's mind-boggling. You know, it's almost like virtual reality. It is fantastic.

[00:12:38] And I don't mind watching sometimes on YouTube. I'll come across like a channel, gaming channel gets suggested in my feed and I'll check it out for a little bit. I'm like, oh, this is kind of cool. But, I mean, could I sit in a chair and play games for 8, 10, 12 hours? It's just not me. Hey, man, if that's your journey and if you're good at it, if it's something you enjoy or maybe you do it as a hobby or you do it for your job, what have you, God bless you. Good for you.

[00:13:07] You know, far be it from me to tell you what to do. I mean, I'd rather play music, make audio and things of that nature and video. However, what an impact. Now the phones have gotten bigger. Now the other thing, the other thing, mind you, is that with all of us carrying around these little portable TV and recording studios in our pocket, we're more conscious than ever of what everybody around us is doing.

[00:13:38] And I would even dive into the impact of it's affecting our mental health. And, you know, as far as a con goes to the cell phones. We have that. It's an acronym called FOMO, F-O-M-O, fear of missing out. And I find myself waking up sometimes in the middle of the night, you know, the phones on the nightstand.

[00:14:04] I'm like, I mean, who the hell is going to send me an email 2.30 in the morning? You know what I'm saying? I mean, maybe some crazed individual or some email marketing company. But it's almost training. It's habitual. It's like, you know, it's the monkey pressing the pellet, pressing the ring of the bell to press the button to get the pellet to eat, the treat, you know, or the dog or the gerbil, whatever animal you want to use. Sometimes we're trained.

[00:14:32] And a lot of times we're disconnecting, a lot of us. And I found myself doing this a lot of times, too. And I've really had to make a conscious effort not to. We're disengaging from the real world to live inside our cell phones, to live in the virtual world, you know, to live in our phone and what's going on. You know, most people, they did a survey amongst the youngsters. They don't prefer to talk on the phone anymore. They'd rather text.

[00:14:58] Now, there's a lot of context that you lose in just words. I mean, unless you're writing the great American novel, you're the next, you know, Henry David Thoreau or, you know, William Shakespeare. But a lot of us here aren't. And a lot of context gets lost in wording and a lot of misunderstandings and a lot of, you know, miscommunication. Dare I say poor communication.

[00:15:25] But when you're speaking with someone, whether it's face-to-face or on the phone, I think there's a closer bond as far as communication there goes. So, you know, it's central. The cell phone has become central to our modern world. It really has. I mean, now, here's a couple good things, though, about having a cell phone. You're driving on a deserted road. As long as you've got cell coverage, God forbid, if you break down, you've got a way to contact someone for help.

[00:15:53] I mean, in the olden days when I grew up in the olden days, you know, if you were out in a rural area and you broke down, you better pray there was somebody around or a town you could walk to because you were shit out of luck, as they say. They're SOL. And, you know, so that's a good thing.

[00:16:10] If you see something happening to someone and you need to contact the police right away, that's another great reason to have these portable studios and cameras and video cameras and audio recording devices and communication devices in our pocket easily at hand to contact authorities, to report things, to document things of that nature. That's a good thing when it's used. Now, let me say this with a disclaimer.

[00:16:39] When it's used properly, I'm not talking about you ding-dong influencers out there, and you know who you are, that stage crap. And, you know, we all know who they are, these people that do stuff to irritate and piss people off and then act like, oh, my God, where are you so mad? You know, these people that, you know, try to dupe people and, you know, just to get reactions out of them and stuff like that, you know, because there's a lot of knuckleheads out there.

[00:17:06] I mean, you know, at the end of the day, I guess, if we think about it logically, okay, at the end of the day, if we really just, and I know some of us, there's a lot of people, I know you, my listeners, you're logical, you're good people. I know that, okay. But there's a lot of knuckleheads out there that don't know basic common sense if it came up and slapped them alongside the head. Or as my grandparents used to say, you don't have enough sense to get out of the rain, okay?

[00:17:35] It means you're stupid. But if used properly with some common sense, the cell phone is, without question, undeniably, undeniably a benefit in society.

[00:17:56] There's so much, I mean, you can get up-to-date news, sports, weather, information, communicate with anybody around the world in an instant. You have the worldwide web of information.

[00:18:09] We have all the information we could ever want or desire, and anything that continues to evolve, we can listen to audiobooks, podcasts, we can watch video, we can watch movies, we can make our own movies, make our own audio, communicate with ones we love, etc. It can be such a great help to society.

[00:18:30] But the caveat, my friends, the point is that it has to be done with common sense in mind. And that's what I have to say about the almighty cell phone. Hey, thanks for listening to the program today. I truly appreciate each and every one of you out there.

[00:18:58] And remember, to see a change in the world, you have to be the change in the world you want to see. It all starts with you, the person looking back at you in the mirror every morning. Remember to be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. If you want to tweet at me on Twitter, it's at Terry Weiss. Stop by the website, weissthoughts.com. Just to make sure you spell my name right, W-Y-C-E, weissthoughts.com.

[00:19:27] And hey, leave us a positive rating and review on your favorite podcast provider, won't you? Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets about Weiss Thoughts. And I look forward to gathering yet again around the virtual campfire with you real soon. Take care.