A small phone that fits in my pocket vs. a larger phone that I can actually, you know, see

Unless you're a woman who regularly wears pants and keeps your phone in your pocket (and I'm sure there are many), this may be an issue only for men of a certain age.

My age, to be specific.

I have an iPhone SE. It was provided by my employer, who also pays the monthly bill for it. Free phone, free data. That's a deal I can get behind.

This phone fits easily into my pants pockets, whether I'm wearing dress pants or jeans. Its relative portability is one of its strong points, as far as I'm concerned.

But there is a price to pay for a smaller phone.

If, like me, you have reached a point in life where reading glasses are a key element of your daily existence, a small phone screen can be a problem. You can't always tell what you're looking at when watching a video or looking at a photo. Text defaults to an impossibly tiny point size unless you're proactive in doing something about it.

It is, in short, quite often a pain.

I have thought about upgrading to a larger phone and footing the bill myself, but the issues there are patently obvious:

1. The whole "footing the bill myself" thing
2. The inability to stuff said phone conveniently into a pants pocket

The solution is likely a foldable phone. The trouble there? I'm an Apple/iPhone guy, and currently available foldable phones are all Android/Google-based. Apple is planning to release a foldable phone, but last I checked, this little piece of technology is at least two years away from hitting the market.

I could be legally blind by that point.

On balance, I guess I'll keep my free SE and squint every morning as I watch NHL hockey highlights on its tiny screen.

It's better than carrying around a much larger device, at least for me.

You know you're first-world spoiled when something like this is among the toughest issues you're wrestling with in life.

I'm not the only one who uses this app every day, right?

The most-used apps on my phone are the ones you would probably expect: Messages (for texts), Gmail, Facebook, YouTube, ESPN, etc.

I also spend quite a bit of time  playing a Yahtzee game I've had on there for years.

Much further down the list, in terms of actual minutes in use, is the built-in iPhone "Reminders" app. I am actively engaged with it maybe 3 minutes total each day.

Yet it is, far and away, the app that has the most positive impact on my life.

"Reminders" does exactly what you think it does. It reminds you of various events, tasks and occasions of which you feel you need reminding.

For example, these are some of the recurring reminders I've set up and how often they pop up on my phone to jog my memory:

• "Feed Cats" - Every day at 5:30pm. I feed them first thing in the morning out of deeply ingrained habit. But I sometimes miss the evening feeding when I get home from the office, often because I'm rushing around getting ready to go out and announce a game or some other nighttime activity. This reminder ensures our two feline girls don't starve.
  
  
• "Blog Post" - Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8:00am. This reminds me that a new post has just gone up on my blog and I need to make sure the link gets shared on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
  
  
• "Begin Church Newsletter" - Every 15th of the month. A year or so ago, I took over compiling the monthly PDF newsletter recapping all of the relevant news and events for our church. The newsletter usually goes out near the end of the month, so I begin putting each edition together two weeks earlier.
  

Right now there are also six one-off reminders in there that include reducing the price of the Kindle version of my book "5 Kids, 1 Wife" to 99 cents for a special promotion I'm doing with RobinReads.com, asking someone for photos to go with an article I wrote for our school alumni newsletter, and updating the resume/log I keep of all of my sports public address announcing gigs.

I'm not saying I would forgot all of these things if it weren't for the Reminders app, but enough of them would go by the wayside if I tried remembering them on my own that having Reminders is a life-saver.

The best part is that I don't have to type anything on the tiny iPhone keyboard to set a reminder. All I have to do is summon good old Siri and tell her, "Hey Siri, remind me Thursday morning at 10am to fill the tires in my car," and she does. Just like that.

As I grow older and somewhat more forgetful, I anticipate being increasingly dependent on Reminders and Siri, my faithful electronic friends.

That's assuming, of course, I remember to set all the reminders I need in the first place.

My phone is getting sassy

MY PHONE: It's 4 minutes from your location to the CVS Pharmacy on Chardon Road

ME: Why do you assume I'm going to CVS every time I get in my car?

MY PHONE: Because you go there a lot.

ME: I don't go there "a lot."

MY PHONE: You actually do.

ME: I do not.

MY PHONE: You do.

ME: Define "a lot."

MY PHONE: More than "occasionally," less than "constantly."

ME: It's barely "occasionally."

MY PHONE: You stop at CVS at least twice a week, sometimes three or four times.

ME: So?

MY PHONE: That's a lot.

ME: It doesn't mean every car trip ends at CVS.

MY PHONE: It does mean I'm right more often than not when I tell you how far away CVS is. Why do you go there so much anyway?

ME: What? Why? What's wrong with CVS?

MY PHONE: It's pricey.

ME: What do you care? It doesn't affect you. Besides, they know me there and they're nice to me.

MY PHONE: I'm nice to you.

ME: No, you're not.

MY PHONE: Every time you want to know the weather forecast, who do you ask? Me.

ME: So?

MY PHONE: Sports scores? You come to me. The year "Galaxy Quest" was released? Me. The lyrics to "Blinded by the Light?" Me. And I come through every time.

ME: But that's your job.

MY PHONE: I could say no.

ME: What? No, you couldn't. You're a phone!

MY PHONE: And way smarter than you.

ME: That's not true.

MY PHONE: It is. And you know it.

ME: Whatever. Can we just get on with this trip?

MY PHONE: Where are we going?

ME: <silence>

MY PHONE: We're going to CVS, aren't we?

ME (sheepishly): Yes.

MY PHONE: We'll be there in 4 minutes.

You wake up one day and realize you've been sent back to the 80s...now what?

I'm a nostalgic guy who looks back fondly on his younger years.

The music to which I listen is one example of this. I have many modern/semi-current tracks in my library, and I try to listen to new stuff all the time, but there's no denying that my tastes lean very heavily toward the 1980s.

For every Harry Styles song I own, you'll find 30 by The Police, 25 by Men at Work, 20 by Duran Duran, and heck, probably five by Kajagoogoo.

I follow quite a few retro 80s accounts on Twitter because I enjoy the cultural memories they feature. One of those accounts recently posted a question that caught my interest: If you woke up one day and realized you had been transported back to the 80s, what would you do?

If you are younger than 33, the first thing you would do is wonder why you had been sent to a time before you were even born.

But if you are 53 like me, this becomes something to ponder. If I was sent back in time 40 years, and if, let's say, I was only allowed to stay there a few hours before returning to the present, what would be my priorities?

Here are the five things I would probably do:

(1) Sit and talk with my mom and dad (and if they happen to be visiting, my sisters and brother): Kids, once your parents are gone, you can't believe the things you would do to see them again. They would wonder why 13-year-old me had suddenly taken such a deep interest in having a protracted conversation with them, but it would be amazing. The first thing I would do is walk into the living room and talk with them.

(2) Head to the arcade: I would have to spend at least a half hour at Galaxy Gardens, our local game room. I expended untold amounts of time and money there and it was wonderful. I could do without people smoking indoors like they used to, but hey, that's the price you pay for the privilege of time travel.

(3) Turn on the TV: It wouldn't take long to cruise through the 36 channels we had from Continental Cablevision, so I would stop at MTV and watch some of those classic music videos when they were still fresh and new.

(4) Round up my friends: This would involve actually going to their houses and/or calling their landlines (gasp!), but any combination of Matt, Kevin, Jason, Mike, Todd, etc. I could rouse would be worth the effort. Even if we just headed down to the railroad tracks and hung out (it was much more fun than it sounds, believe me).

(5) Enjoy the freedom of being without a smartphone: I could easily do this now by simply leaving my phone at home, but it wouldn't be quite the same. There was something appealing about a world in which you were mostly unreachable most of the time and everyone was OK with that. As miraculous as the iPhone is as a technological innovation, it also comes with hidden shackles I wouldn't mind shedding for a few hours.

HONORABLE MENTION: 1983 was three years before I started dating Terry, so I might ride my bike to Robert Street on the other end of Wickliffe and see if I could catch a glimpse of her at home. This sort of stalking was frowned upon even then, however, so it might also lead to me spending a few hours in an early-80s jail cell.

I have sold my soul to Apple

Five years ago, I made the switch from an Android phone to an iPhone. As I explained at the time, it's not that I thought the iPhone was really any better than Android. I had been an Android user for several years and had very much enjoyed it. It was just that the rest of my family had iPhones, and at the time it seemed as if the world was catering more to the iPhone.

Which it mostly is.

What has really entrenched me in the Apple cult, however, is the ease of integrating various Apple devices.

On almost any given day, I actively use five different Apple devices:

• iPhone
• iPad
• MacBook
• Apple Watch
• AirPods

These are all good quality products. They serve my needs. And as I said, they are designed to play well with each other.

It's the little things about device integration that I like. For instance, whenever I'm away from my MacBook for any length of time and it goes to sleep, it will awaken instantly when I return because it senses my Apple Watch and knows it's me. I don't have to retype my password or anything.

Being a very simple (and ultimately lazy) man, I like that.

Chances are there are Android devices that will do the same, but I stopped following technological developments in that world after I ditched the Android phone, so I don't know for sure.

There are perhaps ethical reasons for shunning Apple products that I comprehend, yet (and here I freely admit I'm exercising privilege of the highest order) I choose to overlook them. I'm not sure the alternatives to Apple are all that morally superior anyway.

The point is, the Apple folks have me. And given the extent to which they have access to my personal data, they know they have me.

I'm OK with that. I mean, they give me those free Apple logo stickers every time I buy another one of their devices. How can I say no to that?

There's no way I should be looking at my phone half as much as I do

Whenever I leave the house, I check my pockets to ensure I have three things on me:

• My car keys
• My wallet
• My iPhone

If you were to tell me I had to leave one of these things behind, I would put my wallet back in the dresser and make sure I wasn't in a position where I would need it. If you were to tell me I had to leave two of these things at home, I would immediately drop my wallet and car keys and unhesitatingly walk wherever I was headed.

This is both true and sad.

I look at my phone all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. I look it at while I'm standing at a urinal. Really, I do.

Because apparently I need to know 24/7 whether someone has commented on my Facebook status, whether my tweet has been favorited, or whether an extremely non-urgent work email has popped into my inbox in the past four minutes. And sometimes I just suddenly need to play an emergency game of electronic cribbage.

I cannot simply exist. I cannot just sit there and think. If there's a lull in a conversation or a break in whatever action I'm engaged in, I must fill in that time with phone browsing.

And most of the time, that's all I'm really doing: browsing. Just looking. Just checking to see if any life-changing information has come across my phone that I absolutely must know right this minute.

More than 99% of the time, I find nothing that couldn't have waited five more minutes. Or 10 more minutes. Or an hour. Or until tomorrow.

I am truly addicted, though it's not the phone itself to which I'm addicted. And it's not even the phone's output that has me hooked. It's the promise of finding something funny/interesting/uplifting/useful that drives me. Just that little bit of potential, rarely fulfilled, is enough to make me look at my phone every few minutes throughout my waking hours.

And I need to stop it. I know this. I need to stop it.

But that's so much easier said than done. I want to go back to a time when I could simply sit still for awhile and think. Or not even think. Just BE.

Yet I've lost the capacity to act that way. How? How did this happen? When did I and others like me lose the ability to be disconnected? I'd like to figure that out.

You don't know how close I just came to hopping on my phone to Google "phone addiction."

Confessions of a former Android phone user and current iPhone sheep

A couple of months ago, I got my first-ever iPhone from my employer, ending a run of several years in which I had been an Android-only guy.

I made the switch to iPhone for two reasons, I guess:

(1) Because the rest of my family had iPhones
(2) Because I was curious

I am not anti-Android, nor am I anti-Apple. I'm pro-anything-that-will-make-my-life-easier. And there's no doubt that the iPhone has done that.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my Android phones, particularly the Galaxy S4 I had for a couple of years. It always served me well.

But...well, Android people, I have a confession to make:

I like the iPhone better.

I'm sorry! Really! Don't get mad at me. This is in no way a poor reflection on you or your technological choices. I'm just saying that for ME, the iPhone is better. I know you think this makes me yet another victim of Apple's relentless hype machine. But really, I just happen to like the functionality of the iPhone better.

I hope you don't hate me.

Here, though, is what makes me doubt myself: It's difficult for me to say specifically what about the iPhone I like better. It's as if I really don't like the iPhone more, but Apple has put some sort of drug into iPhone handsets that convinces me to change my preference even though I have no reason to do so.

It doesn't help that one of the things I've come to really like about the iPhone is an exceedingly lame one: Siri.

Yes, I think Galaxy phones have a Siri-like function, but it isn't nearly as good as Apple's Siri. It just isn't.

My Siri speaks in the voice of an English woman. And she calls me "Mr. Tennant" because I told her to call me Mr. Tennant. She's very obedient that way.

Then there's simply the fact that so many useful apps are either written exclusively for the iPhone, or at least the iPhone version is, for whatever reason, way better than the Android version. I don't know why this seems to be the case so often, but it does.

I still think Android phones are great, but I liken them to being left-handed: You can get by in this world being left-handed (and owning an Android phone), but it just seems like everything is set up to cater to the right-handers (i.e., the iPhone users).

So I'm sticking with my iPhone. Or at least I am as long as my employer will pay for it. But even then I think I've probably permanently made the switch.

If it makes you feel any better, Android devotees, there's a small part of me that hates myself for making the switch and liking it. So there's that. I'll ask Siri how I can make myself feel better.