Android Phones Need Age Limit Warnings

You've got to admit...these
are sleek pieces of equipment!

For years I was content and happy to use an outdated cell phone.  It was a Samsung.  You know the kind...you just flip it up to answer and you can text, but not much else.  You could phone folks, have a list of contacts, say hello and goodbye...this is all I really needed to do. 

I'm not by nature a "phone" person.  I don't like to talk for long periods of time on the phone.  I come from a long line and deep deep history of "talkers" who LOVED to spend countless moments talking to family and friends via any mode of phone they could find.  As far back as when your phone number started with GL7 (yes this really dates me) my grandmother would spend over an hour sometimes on the phone with her Polish friends, spouting loads of Polish phrases that I'm sure were peppered with obsceneties that she didn't want us kids to hear.

Even as a teenager, I'd rather see my friends in person and talk to them, than speak with them for long periods over the phone.  Quite frankly, holding that phone up to my ear beyond 10 minutes is just a chore, and my ear starts to hurt.  I know we are in speaker mode option status now, but I still have an aversion to "phone talk."

Despite this, I thought that I would finally come out of the dark ages and get a new phone.  When my contract was up with my company, as I retired in January, I took on my own contract from the same phone provider, and my chance to change my phone came looming in front of me, dangling some kind of invisible phone carrot.

I read up on and checked into nearly 20 phones before finally deciding to go the Android route and get an LG Vortex.  I read all the complaints, all the reviews, all the obscure people-mad-at-the-world and people-happy-with-life-in-general notes to be found on-line.  You know the type...it's such a wide disparity in the comments and reviews section.  You will have a post with "I ABSOLUTELY HATE THIS PHONE!  I THREW IT UP AGAINST A WALL YESTERDAY!" and in the very next post in the queue you'll see "WHAT A LOVELY PIECE OF EQUIPMENT THIS IS! SO EASY TO USE AND I JUST LOVE IT TO DEATH!! FIVE STARS!!!!"  So helpful...

So in the end I relied on my decision making capacity and a piece of paper with the names of cell phones on it which I poked with my index finger after closing my eyes and spinning it three times.  My finger landed on LG Vortex.  So be it.  Sometimes fate is better than knowledge anyway.



My recommendation for a new
warning label on android phones.



I've now spent almost six months with my Vortex and I have to tell you that I really think there should be age warnings on android phones.  You figure they just upped the warning levels on a number of products we see on the market, most notably the visuals on cigarette packages.  I think I'd like to recommend a few photos they can use for people over 50 who decide to buy an android phone.  The photo to the right could be one.

It's not that I don't like my phone.  I do like it.  It's just that no one really seems to know how to write a user-friendly, over-50 instruction manual to go with these things.  Believe me, I do have some reading comprehension skills.  I do understand the written word.  But techno-lingo written for people who have a degree in electronics is beyond my knowledge base.

There is another problem.  Let me give you an example.  Here are the instructions for how to delete a message, from a list of messages on the phone, taken directly from the instruction manual. (Music playing....on hold....music playing....on hold....music playing.....on hold.)  Sorry for the delay.  THERE ARE NO INSTRUCTIONS IN THE MANUAL FOR DELETING A MESSAGE FROM YOUR PHONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So how does one figure this out?  Well, how I figured it out was purely accidental.  I happened to be looking at a message that was in the list and held my finger on it too long and up popped a menu that actually had the word DELETE on it!

For the other 90% of my problems, I google my question and find 50 million other people asking the same question and find some techno-speak person who understands the instruction manual who has explained the answer.  Or some 12 year old.  I find that if you have access to a young person, someone between the ages of 12 and 16, that has an android, they are a vast and infinite source of knowledge on how to use these phones.

So here is my recommendation for warning label verbage on android phones.  "STOP!  IF YOU ARE 50 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER, YOU MAY WANT TO THINK ABOUT BUYING THIS PHONE.  IT COULD CAUSE AN INCREASE IN BLOOD PRESSURE, HEART PALPITATIONS, AND STRESS.  IF YOUR EYE SIGHT IS NOT 20-20 DO NOT EXPECT TO READ ANYTHING YOU SEE ON THIS PHONE!"

And, recently I found that Finland has a wonderful way to take out your anger on cell phones in general.  This could be my next vacation!

Aaarrroooooooo!!!!