The man who's never owned a cellphone
Even the Kiwi professor's mates are baffled, asking “when are you going to move into the 21st century?”
University of Auckland professor Paul Kilmartin has made it to the age of 63 without a mobile phone - and he's determined to keep it that way.
"It's become a little bit of a mission, much to my family's annoyance at times," says the professor of chemical sciences. "They say, when are you going to finally get one? But I'm hanging out for as long as I can."
Kilmartin, who lives in Te Atatū Peninsula, was nearly 30 when the first bulky cellphones - those 'brick' models - started popping up. For him, never having one wasn’t really a decision at first.
Paul Kilmartin says a diary is perfect for his needs.
RNZ / Isra'a Emhail
"I never put much thought into it… But eventually now over the last 10 or 15 years, I've become really stubborn about it and just find it interesting to see how long I can survive without one, which is a real challenge, and I don't know how long that will last."
He’s aware he’s in a shrinking minority. According to Healthify, about 92 percent of New Zealanders had a smartphone as of a few years ago. And while older Kiwis were less likely than younger people to own smartphones in 2015, according to a Research New Zealand Survey, nearly half still had basic mobiles.
"I expect there's probably some people of an older generation than me who have just never had one. But those people will be a smaller number of the population. And even the grandparents get encouraged to connect with everyone through their devices," Kilmartin says.
"We do have a landline here at home, which a lot of people - even my mum in Nelson is starting to not see the need for, because everyone has the phone."
Living phone-free isn’t exactly easy though, he says. These days, nearly every form he fills in demands a mobile contact number, and events use digital passes for entry.
"For some things, I have to relent, and I put [my partner's] phone number down. And of course, then she'll get the occasional message just to say something, and then the answer is, 'Paul, I'm not your secretary' … so I get told off, but I try to make up for it in other ways."
How he manages without a phone
For the past 15 odd years or so, Paul Kilmartin has been using Collins diaries to keep track of his appointments and contacts.
RNZ / Isra'a Emhail
Instead of keeping track of his appointments and contacts on an app, Kilmartin keeps a small green Collins diary tucked into his shirt pocket — he has done every day, for the past 15 years.
"You never need to do more than four or five entries for a day. So there's room on a small diary like this to put everything in."
Sure, he misses the odd family update on WhatsApp, but he's "addicted to emails as anyone" – to stay on top of any last-minute plan cancellations or changes.
"I get up in the morning, the first thing I want to do is check my emails. So I'm constantly attached to those. And so I'm not detached from online activity. But yeah, I've directed away from having the phone avenue as well."
University of Auckland professor of chemical sciences Paul Kilmartin and son Sasha, who is continuing the family love of piano playing and of records. (pictured is the family's 1905 gramophone)
Supplied
When people come over, he'll sometimes dust off his 1905 gramophone and spin one of the 6000 records he inherited from his father, who was a music distributor. As for navigation, he used to keep a map book in the car, but these days he relies on memory — or the kindness of strangers.
"I do get in trouble every now and then if I'm without it. I just have to suffer the consequences if I get lost…
"Particularly if at night or in a strange place and you make the wrong turn and that. Well, you attempt to get a map or stop at a dairy and ask for directions or something like that. So yeah, a couple of times overseas, that certainly happened."
Watching the world change
Kilmartin's seen his fair share of change: pounds and shillings to dollars and cents, fountain pens to ballpoints, slide rules to calculators. He even remembers when internet data cost a dollar per megabyte.
But he's wary of how quickly we've adapted to being constantly connected — and how short our attention spans have become in the age of endless scrolling.
Paul Kilmartin says he's addicted as anyone to checking his emails.
RNZ / Isra'a Emhail
"You can sort of watch them [short-form videos] and get into a bit of dummy state just scrolling through," he says.
“I get affected by that just on the computer. If I finish something, I might go on YouTube Shorts and I suddenly realise I’ve been sitting there for half an hour.”
Growing up in Nelson on an orchard, his school bus ride used to be an hour each way. No gadgets, no distractions — just looking out the window, letting the mind wander.
“I sort of appreciate that time, unconnected time, which is becoming more harder for people to get to that point - when in the day are they not connected? How long is it between checking their phones or doing something on the phone?”
So when he apologises for not being able to give his number, he often gets a nod of approval in response: "Good on you".
