I was dumbfounded at receiving a text message from my wireless carrier in late March. It read: “We have added 15 GB of data to your plan at NO CHARGE for use from 3.25-4.30. No action is needed.”
Fifteen gigabytes of data is not a small number to me, considering my phone data plan has only one gigabyte monthly. So my first reaction was in disbelief. I thought it was some scam or a sweet doughnut fallen from the sky to entice me to buy a new product. I have no faith in my wireless carrier yet.
I read the text message a couple more times. Ok, the capitalized “NO CHARGE” finally sinks in. But I’m still skeptical—after all, why does my phone carrier all of a sudden become so nice to me? What’s the intention behind it? My cynical Chinese-consumer mind has sounded an alarm: there is no free lunch in this world. I’m well-trained in China to question before I sign up for anything to avoid buying counterfeit goods or paying a high price for them.
I learn that other US phone carriers have made efforts in removing data caps to keep customers connected during this uncertain and difficult time of COVID-19. Nice move. I wish I could roll over my unused data to the following months. But there is no such perk in my phone plan.
When I tell my Chinese friends about my one-gigabyte monthly data plan in the US, they’re dismissive and proud to compare mine with their data plans which are in double-or-three digit gigabytes. They tease me that if I visit them in China, they can give some of their data to me through a mobile hotspot with no string attached. What a philanthropic gesture!
However, I can’t offer the reciprocal favor to my friends if they visit me in America. Data, data, data—companies love them so they can optimize their products based on customers’ data. Digital device users can’t live without data, especially now when we’re practicing social distancing and our communications in the virtual world are so reliant on data. But I don’t see there’s any price competition in the near future for data plans provided by the US phone carriers. Alas, welcome to capitalism!
Since I don’t go out much, even I do, my main concern is not data but the percentage of battery left on my phone. These days the data-hungry apps on the phone will drain my phone battery as much as my data allowance. The app developers are cunning to get my consumer’s data without notifying me. This is how they do: When an app is updated, the new version is usually upgraded to the developer’s advantage. Notifications and other privacy setting features are set to “on” or “allowed” by default. For those phone users who know little of this setup, they’ve already opened a window of their personal information to data-hungry voyeurs.
To wisely spend my phone battery as well as my meager one gigabyte monthly data allowance, I have to manually turn off the default setting of my apps if I don’t want to be tracked. Upgrading my apps can fix bugs and loopholes of those apps, but the more often I update my apps, the quicker my battery will be used up. To some extent, I find my phone is like an oxygen-deficient patient who needs to carry a portable oxygen concentrator constantly. If only we had new batteries that could regenerate by themselves. If that day arrives, we won’t see so much hazardous e-waste dumped in the landfill.
Whether it’s battery or data, I have to marvel at my phone which is so much smarter than me. Without the phone, there won’t be a body to carry a battery and receive data. If I have any questions, I just type my questions on my phone, or even just ask my phone with simple questions, the phone will talk back to me. I’m thinking about what sort of facial expression our great Albert Einstein would put on his tongue-sticking face if a smartphone talks to him about his discovery of mass-energy equivalence, the famous formula E=MC2. Since I can’t roll over my data for future months, I have to think hard how to use up the additional 15 GB of data before expiry and also without draining too much of my phone battery. Data, battery, and my smarter-than-me phone, they have made the Internet penetrating into my life during COVID-19 much deeper.
Wanna leave a comment? Click here.