I am part of a dying breed. I am among a quickly shrinking slice of Americans who have yet to step foot in smartphone land.

As of July, Nielsen reported that 55.5% of mobile subscribers in America owned smartphones, a significant jump from 41% a year earlier. This pre-dated the release of the iPhone 5, which has surely swayed that percentage further.

The numbers don't lie. People like me are losing relevance. We're going the way of the VCR I still own but never learned how to use.

This fact alone might tell you all you need to hear. Sure, I may not be confident that I can understand your smartphone, but the truth is I don't really want to.

Before I go extinct, though, I want to explain and defend my stupidphone position. And I want to make one thing clear: I am not your 90-year-old grandmother. I am only 43.

I work in an environment where I'm surrounded by tech savviness and am more than aware that I'm an oddball. But I was hired to report and write stories -- to talk and listen to, focus on and engage with human beings -- and, frankly, I'm neither ashamed nor apologetic that I do my job without a fancy phone.

My aversion has everything to do with who I am -- and who I desperately don't want to be, and by that I mean many of you.

Let me start with genetics.

My late father's law firm dispatched a tutor when he couldn't remember how to turn on his computer. He struggled with call waiting in a way matched only by my mother, who still doesn't have voice mail on her cell phone -- one that's even more stupid than mine.

My favorite story, though, is about one of my father's cousins.

Years after cell phones became commonplace, he decided he was finally ready. So he bought a phone, took it home and left it among other coffee table items. Over the next few days, he sporadically tried using it. He held it to his ear but never found that dial tone. He called others, but no one heard or answered him.

So he marched into the mobile phone store, tossed his on the counter and said, "This thing just doesn't work."

The guy behind the counter picked it up, looked at my father's cousin and said, "Sir, this is a remote control."

I share this story because these are my people. I walk with a tribe of perfectly content Luddites, those who are dubious about and don't need technological advances.

When my laptop died a few years ago, I ventured into my first Apple store. I left twice, once near tears, scared off by hipsters speaking in code. But I bucked up and returned weeks later to buy a MacBook Pro.

People swore it would change my attitude about technology. They said it was intuitive, a good thing since I don't read instruction manuals. I bought it because it was pretty.

Three years in, I still don't love the thing. In fact, for much of this time, I kind of hated it -- in part because I found the screen so hard to see. Imagine my surprise and gratitude when a colleague recently walked by, reached over and tapped some button a bunch of times, and the whole thing brightened before my eyes.

I may have hugged him. And I may have tripped when I jumped up to hug him -- which brings me to my next argument.

I am a klutz. I drop things. I've heard the splash of a phone flying out of my coat pocket and into a toilet one too many times. Whenever my scuffed-up cell hits the pavement, I'm grateful I don't have a cracked screen to replace.

Then there are those videos of those oh-so-smart smartphone users staring down at their addiction and stumbling off subway platforms or into fountains and poles. I'm perfectly capable of doing that on my own and don't need or want a phone's help.