How to Make Your Smartphone Dumber

Apple Iphone 6

Confronted with ever more complex gadgetry and virtual reality accessories that are harder and harder to operate? You may want to make your smartphone dumber. Perhaps you’re one of those people who looks back fondly on the days when you went to the dentist if you were looking for Bluetooth. Maybe you don’t feel like going to the app store every time you want to rent a movie. Maybe you just want to use the calling capacity of your phone to find out movie times at the cineplex or browse a blockbuster. Smartphones are getting too smart for their own good. If Siri is going to editorialize about everything then D.I.Y. may start to be more attractive. There are lots of other ways to make a smartphone dumber. One of course it to simply toss it under the wheel of an oncoming truck. However, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. For those people who are nostalgic for the old days of the simple cell phone, which is to wireless service what the old rotary phone was to touchtone, there are numerous ways to turn your new Iphone 6 into a neanderthal. However a good place to start is to get your head out of the cloud. Once you no longer have access to a bank of information, you’re on your way to returning your phone to what it was in those heady days when Alexander Graham Bell uttered his famous lines “Mr. Watson--Come here--I want to see you." 

The Decline and Fall of the Backseat Driver

Susan Bennett, the voice of Siri

Spike Jonze’s latest movie Her is about the love affair between a man and a machine, or specifically the voice within a machine. It’s what they used to call high concept in Hollywood, a nifty creative idea that encapsulates a whole world. But the fictional arena the movie describes and out of which the conceit is generated is quickly becoming a reality for the possessor of iPhones, iPads and the simple GPS systems found in most cars. In fact, Susan Bennett, the actress who is the voice of the iPhone’s Siri command system, became a celebrity recently when she outed herself and answered questions about her alter ego for television reporters. Let’s say it’s summer and you pack the family up with tents and sleeping bags for a camping trip to one of the national parks. These kinds of events once fueled a whole genre of satiric comedies about argumentative families. National Lampoon’s Vacation was one of the most famous. The advent of the electronic voice has virtually eliminated a whole genre of comedy. Now there are no longer any bumbling Chevy Chase type fathers losing their way and getting screamed at by their wives and kids. Instead of facing a chorus of complaints when a wrong turn is made, the driver simply hears a value free correction when he’s off course, “please turn right in three tenths of a mile.” This might not result in the kind of passionate phone sex that Spike Jonze envisions. However, if we are apt to criticize technology for reducing the human element in interactions, here's an example of the positive effects of technologic innovation on self-esteem. A new generation of electronically generated voices has made the backseat driver a thing of the past.