Overheard a kid at a cafe ask his mom why I had three phones on the table

I was at this place in Medellin, the one with the good coffee near Parque Lleras, and this little guy points at my setup and goes "why does he need so many screens?". His mom said something about me being important but nah, it's just one phone for banking and two factor codes, one for work calls, and a cheap burner for WhatsApp with clients. Made me think back to 2014 when I worked from a single laptop in a hostel in Thailand and got by fine. Anyone else feel like the gear list just keeps growing over the years?

3 comments

3 Comments

fisher.jessica5d ago

That whole scene is just a tiny window into how we've all normalized this slow creep of extra devices. Every app or service now demands its own dedicated phone because security and privacy get split up across different accounts that can't live on the same device without causing chaos. Walk through any airport lounge and you'll see people with two laptops, three phones, and a tablet on the armrest. It's like we went from "one device to rule them all" to "one device per task" without anyone really deciding that was a good idea.

fionamurphy5d ago

Oh come ON @fisher.jessica, you're framing this like it's some dystopian creep but maybe, just maybe, we're finally admitting that one phone can't do everything well. I keep a dedicated travel phone with a Colombian SIM because my main US number freaks out with certain apps abroad. My burner for client WhatsApp is separate because I don't want those messages mixed in with my kids' school group chats. Ever tried managing two factor codes for 15 different accounts on a single device? It's a nightmare. We didn't get more phones because of some conspiracy, we got them because each one does its job better when it's not fighting for space with a dozen other use cases.

rivera.hannah4d ago

Hold on, you're making this sound like some kind of slow-motion tech invasion. Three phones is a lot, sure, but are we really acting like one device for banking, one for work, and one for WhatsApp is some deep conspiracy? I mean, I keep a separate phone for my shop's inventory app because the thing crashes every time I try to run it alongside my personal maps. And yeah, I've got a cheap burner for client texts, but that's because I don't want to accidentally send a pricing quote to my wife's book club. It's just practical, not some dystopian plot. Aren't we just getting better at keeping the noise out of our own pockets?