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How did we get here 😵‍💫

Long gone are the days of being unable to contact a friend or loved one. Used to be nobody had cell phones, people still wrote letters, and phone calls were rare. The main reason is that people would rely on their house phones for the most part, which means if they were not home nobody could contact them. If you've never experienced that feeling, then I consider you unlucky.

My childhood was filled with memories like this. I would go knock on other kids' front doors when I wanted to play outside. I didn't text them or talk to them online in voice chat on a video game. I sometimes would waste my time walking to the other end of the neighborhood just to find out that my friend wasn't even home.

While my brother and I were outside playing, my mom never called us and told us it was time to come home for dinner. Instead, she would walk out on our front porch and scream our names from the top of her lungs. There were times that we would pretend not to hear just so we could hang with our buddies just a bit longer. She of course knew that we could hear her loud and clear.

I didn't get my first cellphone until 7th or 8th grade. It was a Motorola Razor and at the time I thought it was one of the coolest cell phones. It didn't do much besides make calls. I didn't even have the ability to text at the time since our monthly plan didn't include that. I had that same phone for a few years and it was mainly so I could call my parents in case of an emergency. That is when the reliance started and the safety blanket that is now our smartphones began to slowly shroud humanity.

By 2007 I obtained the very first iPhone. This was revolutionary and truly made me feel like I was some futuristic dude way ahead of all of my classmates. I was the first person at my school to get an iPhone. Back then we didn't even have an App Store and the Edge cell service was extremely slow. Did you know that originally you could only get an iPhone if you had AT&T as your provider?

I was obsessed with my iPhone right away. Being able to watch movies while at school was amazing. The touchscreen keyboard was odd at first, but quickly became something I was very accustomed to. 15+ years later, things have changed quite a bit with technology. Our phones can do basically anything and they are hard to live without.

Having friendships or relationships in 2023 is very difficult actually. Most people feel like if you aren't talking to them daily, then there must be something wrong. This often makes me feel smothered and the joy I used to find in getting to see somebody eventually turns into dread. Doing the same thing every single day gets old. If you take a few days or even a week off from it, all of a sudden it's enjoyable again.

I miss being able to not see somebody for a long time and then when I do nothing has changed. It can happen sometimes, but quite often now you can feel a bit of a grudge if you pay close attention as I do.

When school let out for the summer, I would often go 3-4 months without talking to some of my friends. It was totally normal to me and I didn't feel the need to call them as I knew once school started back up I'd be friends with them just like the year prior.

These days if you disappear for a quarter of a year, you are basically dead to the person that isn't getting to see you. It's too easy to meet somebody else online who is willing to give you that attention you are craving. Meanwhile, the person that really cares about you and has been there for you in the past is dust in the wind.

I don't know, this is just something that I think about quite often. People born after 2000 have no idea what it is like to live without a smartphone. These past situations that I describe probably sound like complete bullshit to the younger generations. If we go back to before the early 90s when I was born, the gap widens even more.

I'm not sure if the world would be better without smartphones, because they do provide us with so much. I just wish that people would learn to control the temptation of erasing somebody that they love just because they aren't around for a while. It shouldn't be awkward talking to somebody for the first time in months. At least not if you are really friends with them.

What about you? What do you think about this subject? Do you have any distinct memories from earlier in your life that remind you what it was like to live without smartphones, or even just regular cell phones? If you're 30 or older, then you surely know what I'm talking about.