As much as I hate them, I do have a cell phone. It's about six years old, has about four features and I use one of them. Nobody has the number but my wife and it's turned off most of the time unless I expect her to call.
I don't feel like I'm important enough to be 'in touch' with everyone 24/7. If they want to call me they can use my home phone/land line and if I I'm not home or don't want to answer it they can try again later.
Phones and their use, especially texting, has become epidemic. They fit right in with the "me" mentality. Phones and something they're calling "social media". Well they named it right, social MEdia, because it's all about ME, where I am and what I"M doing, what I think and what I think about what you think. Give me a moment and I"LL tell you all about ME! That's why they need phones; so they can tell everyone about themselves. Many of them don't know how to interact, face to face with a live human being.
I have a niece and nephew, both in their mid 20s both collage graduates and successful and they can't look you in the eye while talking to them because their eyes are constantly going down to their phones which I think by now have become part of their hands. I never see this couple that they aren't carrying the things. Ask them almost anything and they can't give you an answer until they 'consult' their phone. Progress? Probably. De-humanizing? You betcha!
Good grief.
Tom