Slice of Life: Smartie pants with smartphone can play games

After six months of practice, I am now a seasoned smartphone user, which means I am proficient with about one percent of the 6,500 things it can do, as compared to your average teenager, who knows 90 percent of them. For most of my life, “apps” have been a choice of salad, soup or some kind of chilled seafood. But now I have become familiar with an “app store” that convinces me to download meaningless games and scanning programs just because they’re “free.” Never mind that each app comes with approximately 80,000 pop-up advertisements, some of which are designed to get me to download even more apps.

Sometime ago in this space, I was bemoaning the death of English as we know it and part of my solution was to encourage Scrabble games. Well, what do you know, here comes “Words with Friends,” a Scrabble wannabe that enables you to stare at your phone for hours on end, trying to get that double-letter, triple-word combo for the big score. The problem is that, when all of a sudden you’re playing six or seven simultaneous games, it starts to take over all the time that you might have spent, well, eating.

This brings to mind an important caution: If you find yourself getting kicked off airplanes for refusing to shut down your “electronic device” when directed by surly flight attendants, or maybe having “words with enemies” because you’re ignoring them while waiting for your real “app” at a restaurant table, then maybe you need to trade in your smartphone for the ol’ flip model that does nothing but ring.

On a recent visit, my daughter told me of “Word Warp,” a game she plays on her iPhone because she can’t stand “Words with Friends.” Naturally, I looked for a version for my Android and found “Word Mix,” which has now almost gotten me kicked off ferry boats because of me trying to get the six-letter word in the last 10 seconds of play to move on to the next level.

My little electronic device also has an excellent GPS system, which can get me across Manhattan without paying any tolls. How wonderful! Two weeks ago, my trusty ‘droid directed us across the Williamsburg Bridge, along Delancey, Broome and Watts streets to the Holland Tunnel. It went so well that we tried the same route a week later but stupidly on a late Friday afternoon! No exaggeration, we spent ninety minutes inching along two blocks on Broome between Wooster and Thompson.

Our minds reduced to Cream of Wheat, we pulled over for dinner at the famous Clinton Station Diner, where we played a few rounds of “Word Mix.” My newest download also proved very handy on the return trip, as my helpmate, totally occupied with trying to beat my high score, completely forgot about telling me how to drive.

There’s one thing I have not yet succumbed to and that is texting. For one thing, my fingers are too big for the dang touchscreen and “I’ll talk to you later” comes out like “Ikk tslk ti ypu latre,” making me look like a nearly complete idiot. I like scanner apps though, the modern-day equivalent of the Ovaltine Secret Decoder Ring. One swipe of a barcode tells me all sorts of useless information, which my wife tells me I know way too much of already.

I’ve also used the flashlight function, the “Teeter” game, the Pandora radio interface, Bible readings, email, weather forecasts, daily news, the calculator, calendar and, of course, the camera. And as a grandpa, I am always ready to quick-draw the phone to bore people I don’t even know with dozens of the latest shots of little Lulu.

Here’s the big problem. For someone who is as easily distracted as I am, my phone has already seriously infringed on a lot of time that I didn’t have to begin with. My own personal efficiency rating is suffering and I have to take some action. So here are some personal resolutions that I am sure to break immediately but, hey, my heart is in the right place.

First, the cell is to be turned off as soon as I get in my door at home. If someone wants to get me that desperately, I still have a land line but probably not for long. Second, the weekends will be cell phone free. With spring seemingly already here, I have tons of things that need to be done around the house that shouldn’t be interrupted by a double buzz on the phone, indicating that one of my wordy “friends” has made a move.

I remember when cell phones first arrived and affixing one to your car meant two or three cables attached to a device about as big as a loaf of bread. Everyone said, “Oh these are very handy in case of an emergency.” I am also old enough to remember that people also said that television would be a great educational tool.

The problem is, when something becomes either faster or more efficient, it becomes immediately indispensable. Remember when people were insulted when they called your house and got an answering machine? Now what happens when they can’t get hold of you? “Don’t you have an answering machine? Is it on? Is your cell on? What good is your cell if it isn’t on?”

Hey, you know, I could go on and on here, but I just got an email alert. Gotta go.