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The temptation had needled at me for several years.

Everyone around me had given in. First my son. Then my husband. My sister held out until last fall. And then finally, one friend and then another fell to the pressure.

At last I came to realize that I, too, must do it. And now, I must admit to the multitudes that I have joined the trend.

I am an owner of a smart­phone. Now, get this straight: Owning a smartphone does not make you smart. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite.

With my old “dumb” phone I felt pretty savvy. I maximized that little flip device. With my fairly large directory of “contacts,” that pocket-size wonder became a mobile Rolodex. Need a number? Hang on and I’d whip that puppy out and feed you the information.

Eventually I learned to pull out the phone and snap a photo of a lamp or piece of furniture that I wanted my husband to see before I bought it.

John had one of the big business smartphones, and he had never even mastered the art of using it as a camera.

Take that, smartphone!

During last year’s bout with cancer, I became one with my dumb phone. I took it with me to chemotherapy and practically drained that tiny battery each session taking silly photos of my sister, my nurses and my doctor to send to my son and husband to assure them that I was not in distress.

Texting (I was one of the last holdouts for that technology, too) on the dumb phone wasn’t a problem.

I didn’t mind hitting the “7” key four times to make the letter “S” pop up on the screen. And who cared if my texts were limited to 160 characters?

As I returned to work and normal activities after cancer treatment, I discovered that the rest of the world was leaving me — and my simple-minded communication techniques — behind.

I’d meet with a client or two, run a few errands and then return to my old desktop only to find that a client had emailed me important updates about a project — updates that required me to make a stop to proof a project or pick up information.

Little tasks that I could have known about and promptly taken care of with a “smarter” phone.

Then there was the peer pressure. Suddenly everyone but me was able to watch the latest viral video on their phone. Frankly they could pull it up faster on their cellular device than I could on my archaic desktop computer.

Questions about the weather? Smartphone owners simply touched a spot on their phone’s screen, and instantly they could tell you when the first drop of rain would fall in our neighborhood.

Need to update the leaderboard on a golf tournament? Yep, all those “told you so” friends not only had that information at their fingertips, they could tell you which holes Phil birdied.

The time had come. I had owned my old simple-minded phone for four years or so. I was never one to update each time the cellphone company told me I was eligible for an upgrade, so they seemed surprised to see me walk in the door.

“What can I help you with today?” they gleefully asked.

I discreetly held up the old flip phone and admitted the truth. “I need to trade my dumb phone in for a smartphone.”

They smiled. Another customer converted.

It has been five days since I entered the world of intelligent phones. I got one that responds to the touch of a finger. It’s supposed to be easier to operate.

I have successfully received text messages and emails on my new phone. My old photos are now on the new handheld device, and my comfort level has been growing. But only after some growing pains.

Wanting to be cool like other smartphone owners I touched the weather button. But my phone gave me only the weather for New York City and some other place I still haven’t found on a map.

I tried to type in “High Point” on the touch-screen keypad, and it came out “Jigh pont.” Then the phone assumed I meant “pony” for “pont” and substituted that word — just to make my life simpler.
Ugh.

Then I wanted a simple ring tone, a tone that sounds like a phone and not like a band warming up for a concert. And I wanted all those notifications for every text and email message to be quiet during the night.

When I go to sleep, I don’t want to be notified that my favorite catalog is having a 20 percent off spring tunics sale for the next 12 hours or that I can get my prescriptions cheaper from a Canadian pharmacy.

I’ve fiddled with the settings (there’s a button that actually says “settings”) and thought I had turned off all the “pings” and “bings.” But right now the thing is propped up on my desk staring at me. Somehow, I’ve disabled the ringer on it, and it just buzzes when someone wants to talk with me.

In the past, I would have resolved this issue by consulting the owner’s manual, but this smartphone doesn’t have an owner’s manual. You see, they assume you don’t need one. The phone is self-explanatory.

Not to me.

What I’m hoping is that by buying a smartphone, this new technology will impart some wisdom on the owner.

Perhaps I don’t even need a ring tone. Perhaps the phone will just use artificial intelligence to alert me to an incoming call.

That’s the only hope I have left.

Contact Cathy Weaver at CWeaverNR@gmail.com