After years of happily using my vintage, pre 2005, Nokia mobile `phone I took a quantum leap and bought a fairly sophisticated smart `phone.
It is very useful but it does not fart.
Am I missing out on something?

I frequently look at my smart phone - a Samsung Galaxy S4, since you ask - and wonder how I managed my life before.

(Mind you, I have had similar feelings at various stages of my life concerning, inter alia, the fax machine, the photocopier, the PC, the laptop PC, wireless broadband etc. etc., so the sensation isn't new to me).

I use it for phone calls far more than my land line, which is virtually redundant now it is on the no-call list. It has a calendar that keeps me in touch with all my appointments (mirrored on my desktop and laptop), especially now that dentists, doctors etc. tend to send a text-message reminder. It tells me how best to navigate from A to B, albeit in a faintly ridiculous mechanical voice. It can find any digital radio station in the world, and feed it through the earphones. And it takes photographs.

One thing I don't have, however, is one single "game". I watch with interest all the people on the train with their heads bowed over the screen, thumbs a-flicking. The lad on my left is playing some kind of car racing game, the housewife-with-shopping-bag on my right is into Candy Crush, or one of its bright-pastel variations. It does worry me a little, where this addiction might lead us all. But then I think, sod it, and go back to listening to Tune-in Radio...

I don’t ava a mobile or smartphone doover of any sort! I get along perfectly well wiffout that rubbish!

So does that make a dinosaur or wot?

If it does, well ima very appy little sauropod!

Very funny article, but with some serious observations on our society's obsession with instantaneous communication.

I wonder what would happen if the relevant satellites blew up and/or the millions of mobile phone repeater towers stopped working or were destroyed. I think the human race would just adapt. I know its hard to fathom, but somehow the world survived without mobile phones up until about 20 yrs ago.

Hi there old dinosaur, wots up?

I do have a mobile, the kids insisted I carry. I think it was one of their old ones. I think it is an insult to my mechanical ability, that they think I need one when driving my 34 year old Triumph. For the kids on here, that is a sports car, not a motorbike.

This miniaturization is a pain, the numbers are so small, I can only get them with a fingernail, so I don't ring out much.

My daughter complained I never answered her calls, then found the thing was on silent. Damn.

I recently found out how to open a message, but I can't read them without my glasses, so don't bother much, that damn miniaturization again. I think I have worked out how to delete them too, now that has to be good.

I think there is a camera in there somewhere, but I'm damned if I can see a door to get it out, but then, if I can see the thing, why would I need a photo of it?

So I do have one, but try to ignore it. I think the kids are learning I go for long drives in my car, to get the hell away from people, not to talk to them between black spots.

Oh & No I AM NOT a cranky old man.

I grew up in a place and time where our phone was a wooden box with a winder on the side connected to a party line. The connection to our neighbours was generally there during those times they were in the house but the link to the outside world relied on a manually operated exchange with relatively limited operating hours. Our physical link to the outside world relied on a number of low set bridges which were frequently covered by flood waters for days at a time during summer.

I've had a few occasions to use mobile phones to call emergency services, on one of those ocasions a persons condition was deteriating quickly after a near drowning.

There are those who spend far to much time checking and responding to the trivia that instant communications enables but that does not take away from the many benefits that same communication provides.

The world got by without any of humanities developments for far longer than anynof those developments existed. Most of our developments have had good and bad sides to them.

I don't always keep my phone on me or check every message as soon as it arrives but I very much value the features my phone (and other devices) have. I love having a contacts list and calender that are up to date across multiole devices and relatively safetly stored independant of those devices. I love the convenience of having a reading library with me almost all the time. I love the range of tools that mobile connectivity and so called smart devices brings to my life. I could and have got by without any of that, that does not mean that with a little care not to let the devices dominate my time that those same devices don't bring a lot of benefit to me.

R0bert