Falling Farther Behind

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS SYMBOL REPRESENTS?

I'm at serious risk of being left behind...well, actually, further behind...in the race to have every bit of minutiae at my fingertips. The pace of being outdistanced picks up considerably on June 24th. What happens then? The 4th generation iPhone goes on sale. It's not that I will be tempted to buy one or feel hopelessly outmoded as the only one on my block without one. It's just that communication will take on a whole new meaning...and just when I approached the cutting edge by availing myself to the latest iMac!
I love the internet. I love reading seven newspapers a day; I love getting information about the sporting world without having to wait until SportsCenter or wade through insufferable commercials dealing with what's Australian for "beer." Keeping in touch via email and social networking is nice as well since I;m generally something of a loner. Even having the opportunity to blog is cool since the 722 previous posts would have taken up a great deal of room in notebooks stored in the basement. But, there are some drawbacks that I find somewhat annoying, and they all have to do with the basic idea of a phone.
I don't WANT people to be able to contact me every minute of the day. I don't think I need to know what's going on in the world at this very second; and I especially don't want to try to juggle driving a car and feeling that I need to discuss something with a caller. I do want to be in contact with my students and my family; the former more so because they refuse to answer email in any kind of timely manner, and the latter because they would be the only ones from whom "immediate" information would be desirable. But that's it. I don't want the internet on my phone...I don't want a gazillion apps on my phone to while away the time I could be using in a more constructive manner, and I need to know that if I stand up suddenly, dropping my phone in the toilet, I won't be losing hundreds of dollars. As a result, the new iPhone is not in my future.
Of course, it's an amazing piece of technology. A stainless steel and glass mechanism, it is 24% thinner than even the previous models with an improved display. It has two video cameras which allow for video chats, and it even has a flash that will stay lighted during a video shoot. The resolution is high-definition so I can stream all sorts of selections from Netflix and a host of other sources. But...it's definitely not cheap. At $299 for the 32GB model and $199 for the 16GB model, it is decidedly out of my price range since all I want it to do is let me talk with and send text messages to other people. That's it.
Would I love to have the video chat option to chat with the grandkids? Yes, though it would require them to have the phone as well. I use iChat frequently with my granddaughter, and it's definitely a way to keep in touch. But I hardly think every young child will be walking around with a personal iPhone.
Back in my day...
Oh, never mind. I'll just dodder off and email somebody about it.