In a world, without group messaging, a time long ago before selfies, where people greeted each other on the street; it was the land before cell phones. Sometimes I wonder what I did before the smart phone.
Sure, I had my little Nokia phone. But I only checked it occasionally to see if I missed a call or a text. Then I slipped it back into my back pack and adjusted my puka shell necklace.
Yesterday, Michael and I got in a fight over cell phones. We were going over plans for the week and I was scrolling through my instagram feed. I hadn't heard a word he said. He got mad. “Helene, do you want to talk to me or do you want to look at a screen?”
I honestly didn't even realize I was doing it. It has become such second nature to just pick up the phone at every spare moment (or when Michael is boring me). So what did we do with all that time? The time before cell phones?
– We interacted with each other between classes and meetings. Instead of just sticking our heads down and checking their Facebook.
– You actually looked at the tabloid magazines while you're waiting in line at the grocery store instead of scrolling the twitter feed.
– If we really needed to reach someone we could use a payphone nearby. Or, if we're at home, then you can call my second line, but only if my parents weren't on the internet.
– We didn't cancel plans. We couldn't just call someone up during work or school to tell them “something came up” so, we just stuck to the plan. And we had very specific meeting spots.
– We didn't take a picture of every. single. moment. that happened. Instead of watching interesting things through the little screen of our iPhone we actually just used our eyes to see it happening.
– We memorized phone numbers. All my best friends, boyfriends, and some close relatives numbers were memorized in the old noggin.
– We had conversations with people instead of updating our statuses.
– We told people about the delectable meal we had instead of ‘gramming it.
– We got annoyed with people when they ran late. What the heck what we supposed to do?!
– We wrote stuff down. Instead of just putting it in the “notes” section in our phone we actually wrote on paper.
-We printed off maps of where we were going from Mapquest. Mapquest was our friend.
-We really had no idea what people were up to unless we saw them regularly.
– At stoplights we just changed the station to hear what else was on the radio.
What did you do before cell phones?
And a big ‘ol announcement. The Daily Tay and I are hosting a one time link up next Wednesday (the 19th) for “I Can't Wait For Summer Because.” I don't know about you but I'm so over the cold and wintery days. What are you looking forward to? What are you over about winter/spring etc? You can't wait for Summer because… (grab a button below!)
