If Your Phone Is Your Life, Then Why Do You Know Nothing About It?

Some people simply "cannot live" without their phone. Know the type? Well there is no type. People are clinging to their smartphone for a bunch of reasons:

It's their only link to the world. People forego home internet services to simply do all of their studying, work, and communication on the internet from their phone.

They run a business. Client based jobs have independent business owners tethered to their device and need to be able to respond quickly or will be passed over for someone who can get back to them quicker.

It's their photo albums, Rolodex (young people, Google it), and their phone. It's their calendar and alarm every morning.

So with all of the great importance people put into their smartphone... why am I handling common sense problems with them on a daily basis?

Is it backed up?

This one is insanely common for people coming in and worrying about losing everything after they run their device into the ground or break it.

"All my pictures and contacts are on it! I can't lose them!"

"When's the last time you backed it up?"

*Stares like a dumbass* "Ummm I don't know, how do you tell?"

Folks, if you're not going to transfer all of the stuff you simply "have to have" to another storage device, you MUST use a cloud service and you MUST back up REGULARLY. I know you know you simply can't go without the newborn pictures of your second cousin's fourth born, so back them up before bed and before you, I don't know, get drunk in the tub and fall asleep while browsing Pinterest!

Insure the damn thing.

"It's ok, I'm always safe with my phone."

Great, that was no problem when these things were 90 dollar flips, no biggie. Know what not dropping your phone has to do with needing a new one?

Sometimes nothing. Ever lose something? Ever have something stolen from you? These are things that smartphone insurance is covering these days as theft of smartphones is still high. But even if you don't have it absconded...

Ever have an accident? People aren't damaging their devices, mostly, on purpose.

Ever have a kid? Can't leave anything unguarded around those little assholes.

Get it covered, and know how to find your device should you misplace it, for Pete sake! Yeah, Android users, you have a site to find your LG V20 just like the iPhone people!

Oh, and it's insurance. Just because you pay for it every month doesn't mean you get a free replacement. You pay a deductible... like... ya know, INSURANCE.

It's not 'a phone.'

Customers, generally older folk, complain about the price of their "phone" plan.

"I don't pay this much for a car every month!"

No, you don't. You've also never been paying for 4 computer/cameras with constant access to the internet every month. Yeah, it's a new age. Your phone never cost 800 dollars back in 1998 because they couldn't do half the things these devices can. You think they're expensive to buy? I can tell you a cell phone company makes jack off selling you an iPhone.

The Point

Folks, this isn't an accessory. It's not that disposable. It's an investment, an investment in effort, money, memory, business, communication, even sometimes an investment... in your life.

Know how it works.

Know what settings are what, what things are going where, your plan, your warranty, your insurance, all of these things that you hopefully are diligent to know in other investments in your life.