91 percent of Americans say that mobile phones "make them feel safer." Some 88 percent of respondents said that they have a mobile phone, so they can "connect to friends and family to arrange plans."
I use it as an excellent and versatile alarm clock. It scarcely leaves home even though the SIM card is now housed in a smartphone. I have never felt safer with a cellphone and hate talking over phones in general. And that is how some surveys are way off mark and unrepresentative [of me! me! me!].
There. Happy? :-)
(e:tinypliny) - I wasn't forgetting that you weren't "American" but I reckoned that it wasn't my job to mention. I think you forgot that my wife isn't "American" and that by many people's standards, I'm not "American" despite of )or because of me being a naturalized U.S. citizen. So all three of us are foreign born.
As to the definition of "American" in telephone polls, I daresay that an "American" is anyone who answers the phone and consents to be questioned. So, if you ever decided to answer your phone when it rings, you could be an "American" if a pollster calls. No visa required.
(e:uncutsaniflush): You are forgetting one vital part. I am not American. I am a gross outlier by default. Very unrepresented, I am afraid.
PS: Using the word "unrepresentative" (or indeed, "representative") in a sentence without a qualifier could get you drawn and quartered in cold blood at a statistics exam. Lucky for me, far from being any kind of exam, my whole "blogging theorem" revolves around perfecting the art of poking as much fun as possible, and not taking myself or anyone else too seriously.
If I were in "work mode", I would have dragged some heavyweight muck along --> :::link:::
;-)
(e:Paul) - Yes, the concept of "phone" needs an update. (e:uncut), I checked sometime back and verizon didn't tell me that they can do a data-access-only plan analogous to the dry-loop dsl.
I am not a huge fan of talking in phones either... i rather prefer seeing people in person or writing to them. They do make good alarm clocks, though!
(e:paul) - "a phone you can't talk on" isn't that the iPhone. More seriously, can't you just get data/messaging plans without voice these days?
I wish you could buy a phone that you can't talk on.
(e:tinypliny) - are you saying that you think 91% percent of Americans feel as you do? Is that what you mean that "some surveys are way off mark and unrepresentative."
I dislike talking on the phone myself but just about anywhere I go I see people talking on their cellphones sometimes only to say inane things "yeah, I'm at Wegmans next to the ice icecream."
Perhaps cell phones only give an illusion of safety but, unlike you, many people feel reassured if they can call someone (be it friends, family or the police) if their car breaks down or gets into an accident.
If you believe news reports, especially in bad weather, lives have been saved because people were able to tell rescuers their locations because they had cell phones.
So I find the statistic you quoted quite believable. And I have a question for you, why do you think the statistic is "way off mark and unrepresentative?" And, as a scientist, what is your basis for your theorem?
Please and thank you.
i use it for facebook, Huffington Post and NY Times...and will rarely pick up if you call me. That being said, I feel lost without it.