Freedom
My childhood was completely separate from the constant intrusion of cell phones. What I remember best is the freedom. The gaggle of girls (five of us) who lived on our circle drive would get together and play. We held seances underwater, camped out in the backyard, built a town for barbies in a spare room, put on plays for the grownups to watch. We were free.
From the time we walked out of our houses until we heard our mothers calling for us to come inside to eat or sleep. Our attention was on each other and whatever we decided to do. Also, middle school for us, while it included awareness of the opposite sex, was still a ground closely linked to childhood. The eleven-year-olds now are consumed with the opposite sex, dating, cruel ratings of each other on instagram, etc. Their world is the world of sixteen-year-olds. Selfies and Facebook have made many people forget to be themselves because they’ve learned to be all about creating the right perception.
Don’t get me wrong. I adore my iphone. I was in line for the iPhone One and have had an iphone ever since. I love that I get to communicate daily with my eighty-six-year-old Great Aunt Jessie. Instead of talking to her once a month, we talk multiple times a day. I do consciously set my iphone aside for hours a day now. I try to give full attention to moments. I insist on recreating freedom for part of each day. I worry about what things will be like when children, who have grown up too fast learning to revenge share and worship how many likes they have, grow up. They said over a century ago that the invention of the telephone would drastically change and damage the human element of togetherness and interaction. It didn’t. The telephone merely changed human interaction...but, then again, people didn’t carry phones around with them. They had to consciously use them. That’s the crux of the matter.
We’re so busy sharing our life moments nowadays that we sometimes forget to pay attention and actually LIVE the moments.
bookgnome
Pre historic phone faux pa
I remember, very early 90’s phones were still huge, and hugely expensive. Also no texting facility, or call waiting. I was at Manchester Piccadilly Station returning home from uni, agog as this briefcase warrior/prototype Apprentice contestant , sashed up and down the platform talking very loudly on his ‘brick’ it was as this point, it rang. Much to his embarrassment, and everybody else’s delight. The first ‘phone fail’ I witnessed, always stuck with me.
charliegreg
Life before smartphones: the pub
I remember life being much more genial before smartphones. Conversation flowed much more easily simply because it was OK to be vague about things, to gloss over something or occasionally just to be plain wrong about it.
As a result, you could go to the pub and talk fun, sociable, drunken nonsense about all manner of topics with your friends and no-one would particularly care. The point was that you were with your friends sharing stories, memories and opinions, and generally socialising.
Nowadays that’s changed for the worse. If you want to contribute to a conversation, no matter how frivolous, then the smartphone police demand that absolutely everything that’s uttered is cross-checked and factually correct. Conversation becomes painfully stilted now as there’s always someone who’ll whip the damn thing out and try to verify anything said, or find some fact to back it up.
I remember the first person I knew who owned a smartphone having it dunked in a pint of lager after using it to correct someone. People seem so worshipful of them nowadays that I doubt that’d happen, but I wish it would sometimes.
MotoringJourno, Cambridge
A New Way to Crush Young Hearts
I was 12 when my dad brought me back a Motorola phone he’d got in Afghanistan on duty. I immediately brought it to middle school and the boy I had loved since I was 8 commented on my phone. I jokingly asked what his number was, silently knowing this was the greatest day of my life. I text “Hi!” it was all my nerves and butterflies could muster. Minutes passed slowly in the classroom. “Did you get my text?” I asked, desperately trying to sound casual. “Oh! No, I deleted it,” he replied. This was the first time a phone had crushed my soul without even the capacity for Facebook.
jDelphi
Panic has replaced patience
2015: I am meeting my friend at one. It’s five past. I could give her longer, but I can also just Whatsapp her to find out right now where she is, what’s the hold up, is she running late. I reach into my bag and an involuntary wave of anxiety hits me. I’ve left my phone at home. I start thinking: how long should I wait? What if she’s really late? What if she’s gone to the wrong place? What if she’s here but we can’t see each other? What if she’s trying to cancel RIGHT NOW? How can I start to get in touch with her? I don’t memorise mobile numbers anymore. I need an Internet connection. Maybe I can get on Facebook and message her? Where’s the nearest Apple store? Internet cafe? At ten past one she taps me on the shoulder and makes me jump.
1996: I am meeting my friend at one. I sit outside the bus station reading a book, waiting for her bus to get in. It’s five past. It doesn’t even occur to me to start wondering where she is. I check my watch after a chapter. Twenty-five past. I figure she’s missed one bus and will get the next. I calculate she’ll arrive at two latest - after that I’ll go to the payphone, put in 10p and ring her mum’s house. I go back to my book. At ten past two she taps me on the shoulder and makes me jump.
brambleberry
First office job in 1975
A single telephone- with a ‘call after 1pm’ sticker on it- served 4 desks. We could call internal numbers, but had to go through the switchboard for an external line.
Mind we could also dial into a tape dictation system which went to the typing pool. One time a colleague found some else’s memo on the line. He added a ps- ‘please excuse the typing’.
gedparker, Telford and Wrekin
Lively arguments for hours
Just before smartphones were widely used and none of us had one out of the 7 or 8 of us.
We were on a beach in Bournemouth at night, discussing the stars and other celestial bodies. A friend, doing a science degree might I add, thought the stars were a different thing altogether from the Sun, which was very special as it was the only one in the universe like it. All stars were exploding Suns that nearly became fully fledged stars.
Our friend was extremely stubborn, and refused to take into account anyone else’s opinions, resulting in a debate that took a good 2 hours. It had to be finally settled when we got home a few hours later using a laptop.
Now, this argument would be settled in four or five seconds. Sad in a way.
joebalinas
