

It makes your life more complicated

A phone is just another thing that checks email, holds information and schedules events, and which has to be carefully kept in sync with all the other crud in your life that checks email, holds information and schedules events. The difference? This one likely has a 240 pixel-wide screen and a shabby interface spawned from the hellish loins of Windows CE.

It’s horribly expensive

Total Cost of Ownership. Apply that idea to everything, not just cars and mortgages. The fact is that most cellphones will cost you thousands over the life of the contract. Short of paying-as-you-go with a Wal-Mart crapdybar, you’re in it for a good $1,000, and about $2,000 or so with a smartphone.

It enslaves you to a one-sided contract

This is the magic that allows the previous item to happen, but is sufficiently vile to warrant an entry of its own. Everyone is at it, but the most iconic example of how times have changed is AT&T: Ma Bell has reglued itself together with almost Marxian inevitability, but now has the advantage of having countless customers under astonishingly abusive contract terms. Take that, deregulation.

It makes you perpetually available

If it’s on, they can get you. If it’s off, they wonder why they can’t get you. It’s a lose-lose situation for your Zen.

It is boring

The hype tsunami surrounding Apple’s iPhone reveals that even something minimally inventive can completely wire public interest in what is otherwise a completely hidebound and risk-averse industry. Are we in the future yet?

It must constantly be recharged

Unless you want to hoik around a brick, the chances are you’re recharging it daily. Screw fuel-cells: with WiFi, BlueTooth, WWAN and whatever else, we need AAA-size disposable fission reactors to keep these buggers awake.

It knows where you are

GPS is in every box, but you can’t use it for much. The government loves to watch them without warrants or probable cause: if it’s in your pocket, you are Robocop and The Man is Dick Jones.

It encourages stupid people to become a public menace

Forget about whether talking on cellphones while driving should be illegal: the fact remains that it is stupid. I know that you are perfectly capable of the mental gymnastics required for all this — you are a hypercephalic Gadget Lab reader — but it’s best that you stop now, so as not to encourage lesser minds to attempt similar feats. Some are now being caught texting while driving. Just pull the car over, for heaven’s sake!

Ubiquitous pleather accessory shops

Mallbound Cellphone crap shacks are an offense to nature. On the bright side, they support the whitewashed pegboard industry.

It turns you into a public annoyance

Hell is other people’s ringtones.