Trust me, I love my smart phone. If it were socially acceptable I would marry it and have little cell phone babies with it (Oh, I’d find a way). The smart phone is an amazing technological device that has made my life, and the lives of every living creature standing on two legs with a pulse, that much better. It is a proven fact that the world would suck without smart phones.

But goddamn I miss the flip phone.

There was so much less stress with a flip phone. You never really freaked out if your flip phone busted. If it did, yeah it sucked, yeah you had to buy a new one but, you know, it wasn’t the end of the world. They were durable enough that you could actually drop it a couple of times (if it was closed) and luck out and have it not break. You didn’t even really need a case for it. You could walk around with no protection. It was like going condom-free. Livin’ on the edge!

Not so with a smart phone. Having a smart phone is like taking care of a newborn that is constantly sick. You always have to make sure it is safe. Breathe wrong on your smart phone and the thing could disintegrate. That’s how fragile it is – either that or your breath could just be really bad. I am constantly in a state of barely controlled panic about busting my smart phone. But when I had a flip phone and it broke I would just be like, “Eh, what are ya gonna do?”

Plus, the flip phone was so compact you could just throw it in your pocket and go. Now it’s like you’re carrying around a small TV screen. It sure as hell won’t fit into every pocket – forget about skinny jeans, which you really shouldn’t be wearing anyway – so now you have to hold it everywhere you go. And holding a smart phone when you are not really using it is just a plain hassle. You’re basically just holding a lightweight, incredibly expensive brick. The convenience of checking email and surfing the Internet wherever you are is unfortunately counter balanced with the annoying fact that you need a man bag to carry your smart phone these days.

But really the biggest plus about the flip phone was that you could express your emotional state better with the opening or closing of it. Sad? Close it slowly. Happy? Open it fast. It’s like your phone could accentuate your feelings better than you just explaining them. Getting a call that you’ve been waiting for and you just know it is good news? With a flick of the wrist you’d flip your phone open and take the call. It was cooler than flipping open a Zippo lighter. Conversely, you have a real bad phone conversation that leaves you enraged? Flip that phone shut in anger! Flip it with authority. It was just a great way to let the moment land. You can’t let a moment land with a smart phone.

Nowadays, because of the way a smart phone is made, everything is about swiping.  The act of flipping has been replaced by the act of swiping. And it is nowhere near as cool. It’s kind of like comparing an automatic with a stick shift. Both get you where you want to go; only one of them makes you feel cool by doing it.

Swiping ain’t the same as flipping.