Smart Phones

[puffy]

I guess this is my day to discuss this topic..As I said in an earlier post I took my wife to get a new phone today.While I was at the phone company I got into a conversation with a young man who worked there.He is barely one third my age.The fun started when he asked me what phones used to be like.I asked him if he's ever watched Andy Griffith.Then I went through the evolution of phones from those on the show to the hand held computers he sells these days that make phone calls.He looked at me in a funny way as if he wasn't sure about what I told him.Then I told him to use his smart phone and Google the history of phones.He laughed and I laughed.I've been thinking since I talked to him that he's typical of a vast number of young folks today who don't realize that less than a life time ago the high tech devices they enjoy so much now didn't exist.

 

[jah76]

Heh. My two year old stood in front of the TV once and tried swiping through the channel listing. He is so used to touch screen everything. Heck my kids shout at the Xbox to pause Netflix's before leaving the room.
It's crazy. I always try and teach them technology should be used like any other tool. Too assist you, not to become a crutch. I use my smartphone all day at work, but I've got peers that can't do ANYTHING without theirs including remembering simple things like addresses.
I love technology, but when its out I want someone who remembers how to splint a leg without having to look it up.

 

[lordofthepiperings]

I think I'm on the tail end of remembering what life was like before smart phones. I was born in '85 so my high school years were from 99-03. I do recall most of us not having a cell phone of any kind. If someone did it was one of those cheap Nokia ones that you bought minutes for. Heck, I remember when there used to be a phone booth on just about every other block. I haven't seen a phone booth in probably ten years, maybe more.

 

[plateauguy]

Got you all beat. I have an old bakelite dial phone that I use (Like Lucy's). The first time my granddaughters saw it, they tried to punch the dial holes. After I showed them how a rotary dial worked, they were amazed, "Grampa, this is really OLD!" I really miss the Andy Griffith show.
My first cell phone (1986) came in a battery case that was 12" X 12" and weighed a ton, and looked like a small suitcase. We were technical trendsetters once.

 

[lordofthepiperings]

We actually have a wall mounted rotary phone in the bathroom next to the John.

 

[taerin]

I remember in Wall-Street (1980's movie) Gordon Gecko was talking on what looked like one of those HUGE military radio things, I later learned those were among the first cellphones that only rich people had at the time, I was like holy crap! Just looks so stone age, but it was the method around way after I was born.

 

[locopony]

Ha ha, anyone remeber party lines? That was the best. Some neighbor would answer the phone and tell the person on the other end, who was looking for you, that they had the wrong number. I hated dialing a rotary phone, if ya stop short of the finger stop, you just put the wrong number in.

 

[numbersix]

I grew up with rotary dials. Our phone was attached to the wall - you had to sit in the kitchen to have a conversation.

I have an old bakelite dial phone that I use (Like Lucy's).

Us too. We bought a professionally refurbished model from an antiques mall in Queechee VT - works great, has a great ring. Sadly the guy's shop is no longer there, but he did a great job. Cloth wires, the whole thing was very well done.

I remember in Wall-Street (1980's movie) Gordon Gecko was talking on what looked like one of those HUGE military radio things

lol! I re-watched Wall St a couple of years ago and noticed that too. That was state-of-the-art back then. Everyone oo'd and ah'd seeing him capable of walking on the beach and talking on the phone. How times have changed.

 

[pstlpkr]

LOL!

The wife and I thought we were cool when we got a "bag phone".

It made a good door stop.

 

[zonomo]

Today's generation of kids don't know what its like to NOT have the internet, think CD's are old school, dont remember the Challenger explosion, etc. Time is a friend of no man.

 

[fitzy]

Forget it if you were to pull out an 8 track or even a record. ha ha

 

[4dotsasieni]

When I was growing up (in Cleveland), we had a four-digit phone number, and were on a party line (for you youngsters, that's a line that you share with another party, a different sound ring tells you who should pick up, and before you make a call you have to make sure the other party isn't already on the line).
Then, I guess it was in the '70's, I had a job that came with one of the original automobile "mobile phones" - they didn't call them "cell" phones then. The thing weighed a ton, had a huge thick cord connected to the dash-mounted base, and required holding with two hands to dial up a call. If you think using a phone while driving is a distraction now, you should have seen me steering with my knees while trying to talk on that huge brick. :roll:

 

[oklansas]

They recently changed part of the IQ test because of the change in phones. One part of the test deals with identifying "what's missing" in a series of B&W pictures. There used to be one with a rotary telephone - what was missing was there was no cord going from the phone to the handset. Kids were typically missing this particular card (therefore skewing the results) because most had only had experience with cordless phones. Now, people increasingly don't even have a home phone - just a cell.

 

[joemcdds]

When I was a boy we would visit my aunt in Comanche TX...Three digit no...Wooden phone on the wall..You would turn a crank to ring the operator and say the no...I am 73..

 

[kashmir]

I was born in 1960 and grew up with rotary phones, and Ma Bell. We were the first on our block to get a cassette player. A big old Ampex unit. I grew up with I Love Lucy, McHales Navy, Gilligans Island ... I sure miss those days.

 

[boudreaux]

I sometimes swear that current Internet service providers are set up with a mule following a dangling carrot and walking around a circle, but add me to the list of old farts who are starting to question the real need for a smart phone.
Well, one time the thing helped me was when I walked out of a Staples and discovered that my car would not start. No pay phones around, but I did have a cell.
My AT&T contract expires in November. May have to rethink what I really need.

 

[daytonsean]

I, like Lord, was also born in 85. I graduated high school in 2004, and that May was when I got my first cell phone.
I miss going to someone's house just to see if they were home. Now I know what all of my friend's are doing, all of the time. It's weird.

 

[jbbaldwin]

anyone remeber party lines?

We were on a party line -- my family, my grandmother, and the post office. As I wrote elsewhere on this site, my sister and I weren't allowed to be on the phone during business hours in the summer or on snow days because someone might have been trying to call the USPS.
I'm 40 and have never owned a cell phone, by the way. My wife has an iPhone (may she use it in good health, I say), but I see no need for one.

 

[mso489]

Supposedly my grandparents on my dad's side lived in a house that had one of the prototype

phones by one of the inventors competing with A.G. Bell. I guess it had a crank bell. I grew

up with rotary phones, party lines, and "exchanges," which were words to help you remember

the first two digits of the number you were calling. Our exchange at home was Talcott.
Speaking of technology time warp, at work one time we asked a young intern to FAX something,

and she looked completely mystified. FAX technology was before her time and she hadn't a clue

how to use the machine.
It's a brave new world.