Jim's Cafe - Friday, June 6, 2025

Hello SF family, I hope this finds you well as can be.

I was wondering if you have any feelings about.... your phone!

Great invention or ball and chain?
Flip phone or smart phone?
Do you get spam calls and does that make you anxious?
Do you have apps that are calming?

Talk about your phone!

Great invention or ball and chain?
ball and chain, love it and hate it
Flip phone or smart phone?
smart phone, Samsung A14
Do you get spam calls and does that make you anxious?
I do and have taken to putting my phone on Do Not Disturb, it helps a great deal, although I risk missing something important.
Do you have apps that are calming?
There is an app called "Zen Color" a color by number deal, it is most relaxing.

@unnoticed @Baywasp @Lisa the Goatgirl @LumberJack
@cymbele @FFurry @AvidFan @KM76710 @JanisSPK

just a few tags, but remember, everyone is invited!

Hey Angie, thanks for opening up the cafe!

Great invention or ball and chain?
I have mixed feelings about this.

Flip phone or smart phone?
I would love to get a flip phone. I found out about The Light Phone and I think it sounds interesting.

Do you get spam calls and does that make you anxious?
Phone calls in general make me anxious

Do you have apps that are calming?
I like my radio apps

Thanks to @Angie for opening and for tagging me.

I think it's pretty rare to come up with an actually bad successful invention. And imo the things that qualify are always atrocities like nukes or phrenology. I think the rest, the problem comes in from the relationship we form with the invention. I think mobile phones are a great invention, but society has kinda invested too much into the expectation you should always be on them. As someone who only briefly checks their phone like 3 or 4 times a day, i think this is much better.

Smart phone, no contest.

I get spam calls sometimes. They used to make me anxious, but these days i usually either just get annoyed, or find it funny to mess with them.

Not sure if people will count it, but i use Youtube on my phone to play relaxing soundscapes when i'm going to bed. Usually blizzards and crackling fires. Helps me feel cozy enough to improve my chance of overcoming my insomnia to get to sleep relatively quickly.

Thanks for the subject today.

Its a warm topic for me at the moment. I finally had to buy a new phone last month and made a mistake about where I purchased it. I went through the large company I have had service with for years. I should have gone to Apple directly. There's been a big mess with the billing now. So it's taken me a month to just calm and let go of being manipulated. It just isn't worth the anxiety and energy created around it. And I don't care to carry any anger about being directly and in person strongly lied to.
Aside from that..............

Ball and chain in a way but unavoidable to have to communicate in the world as it is now.
Smart phone, Ha....But the picture taking abilities have improved.
Spam calls, I've learned how to ignore the phone ringing on these.
Many calming apps.....Music of all kinds including 432hz and other meditative styles, The there are my plants, herbs, flowers.... learning, identifying, and enjoying. Big Bend community connections and one for connection to certain live seminars and yoga and meditative groups.

Great invention or ball and chain?
great invention, but has been taken to extreme now
Flip phone or smart phone?
flip phone, only way to go, but will probably be forced to smart phone eventually
Do you get spam calls and does that make you anxious?
Yep, spam calls and scam calls. So I usually don't answer at all unless I recognize the number
Do you have apps that are calming?
Thats why I like the flip phone. Its only good for actual phone calls and very minimal texting. No apps. No extra charges for apps. Nothing vital a hacker can get to, and I don't have to learn how to use a blood smart phone.

Cool cafe and questions Angie, thanks so much for posting it I had thought of posting a cafe the other day and/or yesterday but couldn’t think of a “theme” (I always sucked with those lol) so I didn’t. I will try to post one again sometime soon though.

1. Kinda both imo, lol. But I guess more great invention, when you think of how powerful such a small device is, it’s pretty amazing.

2. Smart phone, just seems to kinda work better, plus I love playing the game apps on them.

3. Yes, but thankfully pretty rarely. Not many people or organizations have my number, so that probably helps a lot

4. Yup, I have some very calming meditations I’ve sometimes done in one of my apps called “Fit On” it’s a good app. I find my games to be somewhat calming too, I don’t like the high pressure kinds of games cos they end up stressing me out lol.

Some more tags: @Witty_Sarcasm @Gard @FFurry @Kiwi2016 @LumberJack @Reality @1964dodge @Road to Nowhere

Sorry if any of those are double tags, just want to get this reply posted here lol :p

thanks for tag @JMG ... @Angie
Great invention or ball and chain? yes, and yes
Flip phone or smart phone? smart phone but I also had a PDA back when Palm Pilots were a thing and a flip phone then.
Do you get spam calls and does that make you anxious? spam calls all day every day, but it doesn't make me nervous. I let it go to voice mail if the number is not one I immediately recognize. Legit callers will leave a message or text me if they know me.
Do you have apps that are calming? I have an app that helps me calm myself. Insight Timer has a metric ton of features, but I have been using it since 2015 or so. At that time it was a simple timer app that tracked your total minutes of meditation daily, along with a few guided meditations. I got it because it had cool bell sounds that were ~20 sec long so they rung out and even had resonant tones as it got quieter. There are now a million and 1 guided meditations, talks, fall asleep music, and so on. I really only need the timer but my subscription rate is grandfathered in at $20/year so it's trivial to me and I want to support them anyway. The thing I dislike, though, is that anyone and everyone can set themself up as a teacher, and some teachers are either charlatans or don't know their topic material.

Great invention or ball and chain?
I see it as being both

Flip phone or smart phone?
Smart phone

Do you get spam calls and does that make you anxious?
Very rarely. Don't get nervous, just incredibly frustrated.

Do you have apps that are calming?
Yeah. It's the off button

Great invention or ball and chain?

It can be a great invention, but it should not be used as such a necessity. I miss when you did not have to be expected to be available at all times or how some can't seem to function without them like it is a lifesaver to a drowning person. Or those folks so distracted by the things on the job you can't get them to do anything except for playing with a phone.

Flip phone or smart phone?

Flip phone here.

Do you get spam calls and does that make you anxious?

No spam calls, but I admit I sometimes get a few calls or text. Unless I know them I just delete it all.

Do you have apps that are calming?

No apps or anything special here, just a simple phone for making calls when I am not near a real phone.

With how cell phones are as prevalent and used even for simple math I think of Darth Vader: Don't be too proud of this technological terror you created.

1. A great invention for liars.
2. Smart phone. But I have an old push-button phone
3. Yes.
4. It used to be. Not anymore. I'll have to think about that, thank you.

@JMG Thanks for tag

Good morning for my time zone although it is indeed Saturday

Great invention or ball and chain?
As others have said it is a combination of both. I think it is great - sometimes my only communication means esp on a weekend. But I resent work using my personal cell like a work phone for them.

Flip phone or smart phone? Smart phone
Do you get spam calls and does that make you anxious? I have an option on my phone that silences "unknown numbers" and send them to voicemail while displaying the announcement message.
Do you have apps that are calming?

I don't use the phone for much other than phone calls and pictures. I have spotify for music - an app I just subscribed to so I can listen to music in the office. But I will drop it when I retire. Other than that it is simply a phone and camera. Sad use of an iPhone 16...

Yay, another flip phone user.

Thanks @Angie @JMG and everyone else!

Great invention or ball and chain? Mine is fine, it's when others keep yakking on it, text while urinating, or walk into you while staring down at it 😂
Flip phone or smart phone? The latter -- smart phones for dumb people 👍
Do you get spam calls and does that make you anxious? All the time, since all my information is out there, thanks to any number of breaches... so, no.
Do you have apps that are calming? I'll second the off button, which is now available directly on the touchscreen 👍

Thanks for opening @Angie and for the tag @JMG... I'm really late to this one but figured would respond in any case...

Great invention or ball and chain?
- Great invention but it is a ball & chain and find my FB scrolling to be a bad habit so trying to reduce that. I seem to vacillate between checking alot and then forgetting it...consistency not being a strength clearly.

Flip phone or smart phone?
Smart Phone Samsung G13 --- ran over my really nice Samsung

Do you get spam calls and does that make you anxious?
I don't want to jinx myself but I rarely get spam calls...

Do you have apps that are calming?
No not really...

Wishing all a great week!!!

You too!

I’m sorry to hear about the other phone’s painful demise🥲

Yes was one of those moments... we were moving so was at other house put phone on top of car (no idea why) .. drove off saw that phone wasn't registering on car screen took a corner then pulled over to find run over phone...husband's reaction wasn't the greatest...but then he did same thing about 6 months later...so now neither of us have expensive smart phones needless to say...lol...

That’s a story and experience for sure. 🙃 I’m too short to put my phone on top of the car but it doesn’t mean I don’t do other actions around putting my phone in harms way, lol.