Don’t want to sign in. Ever!

David Sherman

Would you like to sign in with Google?

No, I don’t. I don’t want to be notified, either. Not even once. So, no, don’t send me notifications. Not even notifications about notifications. No, I don’t allow you to know my location. Not just this time. Not for the rest of my life. In fact, I told you my location three or four times and you still think I’m in Trois Rivières or Ste. Adèle.

No, I don’t want to sign in with Google. Google wants me to sign in to everything. Google wants to know everything I do, everything I read, write or think about. It wants to know how many times I’ve used the washroom and what I did there. It wants to know what I take for the headache it gives me. It wants to know where I went Saturday. And with whom.

John, it’s our secret.

I don’t want to sign in with anyone. I don’t want to sign in. Period.

Sorry, I forgot my user name. I know my name but not my user name. Did I use my name? My middle initial? My first initial? Either way, you can’t have it. Password? Password. Which one? Last count I had 342 of them. I have them in a file marked Passwords. Unfortunately, I don’t have the password for my Password file.

I want a phone. It occurred to me finally having an encyclopedia of questionable information was not worth having an encyclopedia of passwords or a prescription for Xanax in my pocket. I also waved the white flag on reading tidbits of what passes for news and scrolling through ads and more ads and more ads. An ad for McDonald’s offering a free meal embedded in a story about the same burger chain using AI to adjust prices depending on neighbourhood incomes is just coincidence. I believe it. Like I believe Google maps that instructs me to get off the 417 at one exit and get back on two exits later. We call it getting Googled. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that descending the highway brings you right by a store that advertises on Google maps. Just coincidence.

We committed larceny. Bought a book of maps. Highways, railroads, rivers and lakes. Red and blue and yellow lines. Choose your route. No ads. No notifications. No passwords.

Would you like to sign in with Google?

I’m at a cynical point where I’m not sure smart phones are smart or artificial intelligence is intelligent. It’s just a collector of information from other sources, scooped up by computers on super amphetamines. Where can I get some?

The phone wants to know how often we have sex, what kind of pots I use for dinner. What I had for dinner. It lectures me on the wonders of weight-loss drugs. Or the dangers. Depends on the day. Also warns me often about poopalitis with pictures I can live without.

Would you like to grant access to your location? Maybe just once? We want to knock on your door. Make a proposition you can’t refuse.

I thought having The New York Times in my hand was a miracle. It might be miraculous. But it certainly is depressing. As is CNN. And the CBC. Endless stream of stories and videos that come with warnings about how disturbing the stories and videos are. Bring it on. I want to be disturbed several times a day. But I then earn a break. The Times and CNN shift into huckster mode. Here are the best food processors, Billy boots, water skis, tested by our food-processor journalist, our boot experts and our new water skier writer. The last one revealed his location and a great white shark lunched on him without benefit of a great food processor.

Would you like to sign in with Google?

They know now what my preferences are. Yes, I like flannel shirts. “Here are our picks for best flannel shirts this fall when you have to turn on the furnace and pay for fuel you can’t afford. This one is only $200. This one is $900.”

If you buy, Google will know you like expensive flannel shirts. If you spend $900 U.S. or about $1,378 Canadian on a shirt, your mother will think you’re nuts. And she’ll be happy to tell you. As will Dad. “You’re making too much money? Give us some.”

Google has pop-up ads for $10,000 winter coats, vacations to the Swiss Alps, treks up the Himalayas. Ads for SwissAir non-stop flights. A personal sherpa, perhaps? Maybe psychiatric services for those who spend $900 U.S. for a flannel shirt.

Would you like to sign in with Google?

To get to the story you were hoping to read, you have to dance round ads. Or, forget the story and place the phone under the front tire of your car and drive back and forth several times. You can Google “How many times do I have to drive over an iPhone to crush it?” “At what tire pressure?” Seems somewhere between once and five times, depending on tire pressure and road service, with the caveat the battery might explode, taking out the tire, maybe the engine. The damn things fight back.

Would you agree to share your location? Permanently? Just this once?

We want to know where you live though one of Musk’s million satellites knows which room of the house you’re hiding in. There’s no escape.

Would you like to sign in with Google?

I’m changing my stupid phone. This is after buying a second-hand, or what is called in the trade refurbished, Pixel phone. I bought a refurbished Pixel because my refurbished iPhone was starting to harass me.

Would you like to install IOS 27.5.6? No? Well, no matter. We’ll do it while you’re sleeping. Surprise! You can’t see the dial pad anymore because it’s covered with suggestions the phone has for the number you’ve started dialling. Don’t you want it to dial for you? Don’t you want the phone to tell you when and what to eat, your blood sugar levels, the window washer level in your car?

Don’t you want to see Apple’s former and present CEO take a knee for Trump? Yes, Sundar Pichai of Google and Alphabet, which owns Google for reasons only secret agents and accountants know, also kissed his ring. They’d turn over their wives for Trump. Priorities. He controls their minimal tax bills. Apple probably pays less income taxes than I do.

Would you like to sign in with Google?

But going Google was my revolt against the evil of Apple. But Pixel, aka Google, was worse. They want me to sign into everything. From recipes to weather, they are begging me to sign in, tell them how many times a month I eat pasta, do I use non-stick fry pans?

Yes, I can read my email on the web on the phone but only on Thursdays and the first Monday of any month ending in er.

Sometimes you swipe up, sometime you swipe sideways, sometime you press, sometimes you suppress the urge to throw it in the toilet and flush. Sometimes you say, “I don’t need to carry the world’s atrocities in my pocket and share everything I do, say, think and own with a corporation’s tentacles.”

So, I bought a new $90 flip phone. It makes phone calls. Perfectly. I hear every word. So do those I talk to. The speakers are bigger than nail-clippings size of an iPhone. I think I can text but why? Text me, I’ll call you when I can. I don’t need to text back as soon as the phone starts clicking and barking.

It doesn’t play mouldy Van Morrison tunes, uninfluential influencers, sermons according to Musk, Trump or war monger Hegseth, who denigrates Muslim religious zealots by regurgitating chapters and verses from the Romans bible. He’s holier than my 30-year-old flannel, $20 J.C. Penney shirt that doesn’t need a $900 replacement.

The flip phone is a no-nut, no news zone, except for the nuts I call friends.

Would you like to sign in with Google?

No. Go away.