Damn Bruh…
Its 2012: The height of the 21st century. Man is the most technologically advanced we have ever been. We have the internet with limitless resources. We have turn by turn navigational devices. We have machines that can grill a mean burger and chicken breast without the heavy living. Finally, we have smart phones that operate as mobile mini computers in our pockets. You can do almost anything with them, and usually people do. Unfortunately, we can get careless and lose these phones. While I can never fault another person for how they take care of their phone, I can fault them for not backing up their contacts. This is the simplest task to complete, and because people still neglect this task, I have to quickly rant!
I remember back in the 90s when cell phones first became prevalent. We kept all of our numbers on our phones, and with no real means of backing up, if you lost the phone you were assed out. What we lacked in technology we gained in normal human efficiency. You see back then about 75% of the important numbers we already had committed to memory, or written down somewhere. If we lost our phones, we had proper controls to address our loss. It was still an inconvenience, but we managed. Now, because smart phones are so advanced, we rarely remember numbers, other than our immediate family or numbers that haven’t changed in years. Do you even remember your significant others phone number by memory? Crazy, right?! At this point, I always suspect that “I lost my contacts” #REALLYMEANS “I never had your number and need to act like I did” Although we may not remember our phone numbers by heart, we have the ability to backup so that we can restore contacts if we lose our phone. The only problem is NO ONE does it!
OK, I was exaggerating, but if I see one more struggle mass email or Facebook note with the subject “Lost all my contacts” I’m going to scream! Whether you have an iPhone, Android phone, or even a struggleberry, there are too many options afforded to you so that you can save your contacts. You can back up your phones to your personal computers so an easy restore is possible. You can sync your contacts to Outlook, Gmail, or an online cloud service, so that you can get your information from the Internet easily. You can even export your contacts to a .csv or .xls file and email it to yourself! It takes about 5 minutes to set up (IF THAT), and you are set forever. People don’t do it because they are lazy, or they “don’t trust having their contacts on the Internet”. Take it from a Comp Sci guy: No matter what you do, if someone REALLY wants your personal identifiable information, they can get it. They can even get it off of your smartphones without you knowing. The most you can do is have good passwords and take general care. Cloud computing is the wave of the future. Utilize this great resource and don’t be stuck in the stone ages!
The 90s and even early 00s showed that we had the mental capability to adapt if we lost our phone. 2012 shows me that even with a plethora of tools to save information, old sins like sloth and hubris will prevent us from being great. I continue to side eye and scold people who have to reboot all of their contacts. Don’t be “that guy”. Back that thing up!!
One Love!
I’m with you Streetzie. I’ve never understood this phenom of losing all one’s contacts. It has never happened to me *knocks wood furiously* because I back my ish up. I really don’t get why people don’t do this. It takes less than a minute!