What's a smartphone whithout an Internet conection?

I have a Nokia 603 cell phone since last year. It lets me access to the Internet by TELCEL service (if it’s hopefully available) or by Wi-Fi at my home or at CU Campus. The main things that I do with my gadget is chatting in Whatsapp, checking my email accounts and reading Facebook’s and Twitter’s newsfeeds. For three days I couldn’t do that. My version of the Amish Challenge was not to get into the Internet with my cell phone.

First, I wrote a warning on Whatsapp to my contacts: “No Internet until Tuesday at 19:00hrs”. I had to look for information on the Internet about my thesis topic, so I needed to open my “huge” laptop to surf some hours. Call me lazy, but it's really big and heavy.

On Monday, I noticed that I didn’t miss chatting in Whatsapp. However, I thought maybe some friends would have tried to chat with me. “If it is urgent, they will call me”; that was how I didn’t feel like an inconsiderate fellow. Up to this time, the situation was all right.

The crisis came on Tuesday. By that morning, I hadn’t finished my process analysis and I had my play rehearsal at 11:00hrs. So, I saved the Word file on my phone and continued writing on the way to Azcapotzalco. Everything seemed to be fine. When I arrived to the cybercafe at 15:30hrs, I remembered that I didn’t have a USB cable to transfer my document, nor I couldn’t send it by the email app of my phone. So, I had to copy my process analysis again on a new file at a PC.

After the challenge had ended, I opened my Internet connection and received three new conversations on Whatsapp. “Was my status not clear?! I don’t play with such things.”, I thought. In fact, I believe that my contacts rarely notice my status. If I am “busy”, they just don’t care about it.

Not considering those events, I could solve my life essentially. It wasn’t a hard experience, but  I have to accept that I'm really accustomed to mobile web access.

A smartphone without Internet connection it’s an expensive item which is being wasted. Although some apps don’t need data loading, the special communication functions of the gadget cannot be used without the possibility of accessing the web. It is not necessary to have a cell phone with a processor inside, but the truth is that it is very useful to afford some money when chatting, and to avoid the fatigue when you want to check your social networks and other virtual sites.

Using technology to get in touch easily with each other is not a bad thing. What’s pitiful is the gradual avoidance of face-to-face interaction as a common way of communication. Nowadays, adult people are always busy, tired and worried about their family and their own safety. Everybody has just some free ours to eat, sleep and have some entertainment. That’s one of the reasons about using smartphones: these gadgets allow us to be close to our friends in socio-economic circumstances that take us apart from them. We shouldn’t let just the emoticons express how happy we are when we see somebody, if we still can show a big smile in person.