Cell phones are particularly heinous. Physically I am always bothered by where to put it--how to fit it into teeny, tiny pockets in purses or fitted jeans--and remembering where it is. I have lost cell phones countless numbers of times and have broken them on several occasions due to lack of proper phone-pocket security.
On top of all this, they are a social drag. I always have to have my phone on me so that my mother can harass me, interrogating me and demanding to know my whereabouts at all times of the day. And as for my friends and fellow classmates, it aggravates me to watch them waste time on silly, brain-frying apps and websites that, I think, promote egocentricity. Even with my relative shyness, I would much rather have a conversation with someone than watch them post "selfies" on Facebook. I strongly disagree that our culture as a whole is any smarter with the advent of smartphones.
In actuality, all Instagram and Google offer to cell-phone users is a lot of useless facts, and some meaningless communication. This is not a new theory, either. I heard a segment last month on NPR about the difference between the facts which the Information Age offers the general public, and the knowledge (connections, intelligence, thought process, etc.) that we still lack. I won't say that all technology is bad, but I will say anything I have learned from the Internet I could have learned with far greater depth of understanding had i learned it from a book or a teacher.
Needless to say, in areas of convenience, social interaction, and intellectual development, I find technology extremely restrictive. I yearn to go back to a time when hauling around cell phones was not required--a time when knowing was knowledge, not facts; and when talking was conversation, not text.
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