Never thought of that, last time I used a taxi it was a dial phone so it has never been a consideration for decades.

I'm old enough to where I won't be forgetting any time soon how excellent things can be without any phone at all, much less cellular. Land lines were usually too expensive for students but people weren't crying about doing without.

I do bring the flatphone with me regularly, just not most of the time, and only when I have a strong anticipation of wanting or even needing it.

In a restaurant I didn't even like pagers when they were a thing.

Pagers might have been anti-social with their piercing interruptions, but least they weren't as annoying to carry around as an oversized internet-connected device.

And definitely not as anti-social as a phone having Facebook with a human being strung along attached by the finger.

I grew up without mobile phones. Now in 2025 it's just much more practical to carry the phone with me. On the bike I use it as a bike computer and navigation, plus it's great to have for emergencies. When out in the town, any town, it's again a navigation, I can pay parking, public transport or call a taxi. And much much more. Nobody forces me to use social networks, so I don't, and I completely agree with you it sucks to see people sit in restaurants and spend most of the time looking at their phones.