The central idea of cell phones is that you should be connected to almost everyone and everything at all times. The trouble is that cell phones assault your peace of mind no matter what you do. If you turn them off, why have one? You just irritate anyone who might call. If you're on and no one calls, you're irrelevant, unloved or both. If everyone calls, you're a basket case. As with other triumphs of the mass market, cell phones reached a point when people forget what it was like before they existed. No one remembers life before cars, TVs, air conditioners, jets, credit cards, microwave ovens and ATM cards. So, too, now with cell phones. Anyone without one will soon be classified as an eccentric or member of the (deep) underclass. Look at the numbers, In 1985 there were 340,213 cell-phone users. By year-end 2003 there were 159 million. I had once assumed that age or hearing loss would immunize most of the over-60 population against cell phones. Wrong. Among those 60 to 69, cell phone ownership (60 percent) is almost as high as among 18- to 24-year-olds (66 percent), though lower than among 30- to 49-years- olds (76 percent), according to a recent survey from the Pew Research Center. Even among those 80 and older, ownership is 32 percent. Of course, cell phones have productive uses. For those constantly on the road, they're a bonus. The same is true for critical workers needed at a moment's notice. Otherwise, benefits seem gloomy. They make driving more dangerous, though how much so is unclear. Then, there's sheer nuisance. Private conversations have gone public. We've all been subjected to someone else's sales meeting, dinner reservation, family argument and dating problem. In 2003 cell phone conversations totaled 830 billion minutes, reckons CTIA. That's about 75 times greater than in 1991 and almost 50 hours for every man, woman and children in America. How valuable is all this chitchat? The average conversation lasts two- and-a-half to three minutes. Surely many could be postponed or forgotten. Cell phones and, indeed, all wireless devices constitute another chapter in the ongoing breakdown between work and everything else. They pretend to increase your freedom while actually stealing it. All this is the wave of the future or, more precisely, the present. According to another survey, two thirds of Americans 16 to 29 would choose a ceil phone over a traditional land line. Cell phones, an irresistible force, will soon pull ahead. But I vow to resist just as I've resisted ATM cards, laptops and digital cameras. I agree increasingly with the late poet Ogden Nash, who wrote: 'Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long. ' According to the passage, people usually consider a person with a cell phone as ______.