I can tell you tales of life not just before smartphones but before the internet itself.
First off, cell phones themselves were a pretty disruptive shift. You used to call your friends on a land line, agree to meet them somewhere, and then wait for them to show up. They’re not there after 10 minutes? No clue why. How long do you wait?
We had answering machines, if someone wanted to talk to you they had to call and leave a message, which was recorded on cassettes. Every so often you would have to change or rewind the tape.
I was a child during this time but as an adult with a cell phone now I imagine there were good and bad parts. Being reachable 24/7 makes work much more intrusive. But being able to know where your loved ones are at any time gives peace of mind.
on to smartphones… life before was not that much different. A lot of the benefits were already in different places, the cell phone just centralized them. Everyone had mp3 players, people had garmin/tomtom gps in their cars. The latter was a real game changer. Before gps you would have to look up the address to a place, write down directions, and hope you didn’t miss a turn. Before the internet you had to have maps. One of the companies was called key maps, it was like a hyper detailed book of maps with an index for every street in a geographic area.
Having said that there was less portability. Shitty restaurants got a lot more business, there was no yelp. On foot it was very easy to get lost. Asking people for directions was pretty common, even the cliche trope of pulling into a gas station to ask where’s the highway.
For contacts you would have numbers memorized, or for less used ones actually written down on cards. One company specializing in this was Rolodex.
People watched a LOT more TV. Like every waking hour was occupied by it. So this idea that we were some erudite society of scholars before the smartphone came around and ruined it all is just bullshit.
When you weren’t at home though you’d be bored a lot. Waiting was boring. That’s the biggest difference, we are never bored any more. If you went to the bathroom without a magazine you’d have to read the back of the shampoo bottle for entertainment.
For teenagers porn was a precious commodity. You had one, maybe 2 magazines that you either found or stole, and were intimately familiar with their contents. There were naughty channels that broadcast over the air but were scrambled, you could watch that and occasionally spot a titty.
One time there was some technical glitch that caused the spice channel feed to come in clear. I was like the road runner in how fast I found a tape and vhs’ed it. Probably recorded over my first communion or something lol.
That tape was among my most precious possessions. I wonder what happened to it.
That one porn magazine your cousin stole from his folks or something, it wasn't actually clear where it came from but you left it in the forest because that was like the one place adults didn't venture.
I've seen others refer to this phenomena as 'forest porn'
I’ve seen others refer to this phenomena as ‘forest porn’
Ah yes a magical feat lost from this mundane world. As a teenager you used to be able to traverse the woods and find pornos left by the fae but alas, since man has encroached on the forest realm and angered the spirits that magic has long since been lost from this world.
One more: texting was a PAIN IN THE ASS. The first widespread phone was the old Nokia bricks, you had the number pad plus 2 extra buttons I think. When you wanted to text you would have to press the number for the corresponding letter however many times (so like for A you would push 1 once or for C 3 times, etc). When they introduced T9, the first predictive texting with a dicitionary, that was probably the most meaningful change in my interaction with technology, it was a game changer. Of course now trying to go back and use T9 is excruciating, to think it used to be much, much worse
There was a very short-lived golden age in the heyday of flip phones with hard keys and T9 dictionaries where you could actually text and drive without taking your eyes off the road for an instant.
one of my first cellphones was a slide phone with a full keyboard. i could text on that motherfucker without even looking at it, perfectly. i can almost do it with smartphones if the screen is clear and i've gotten used to it, but having a tactile keyboard was a gamechanger
If you went somewhere you had to take a camera. Before digital cameras it was film, and you had only so many pictures, so you had to be judicious. Every once in a while somebody would put a finger over the corner of the lens while shooting, which wasn’t visible in the view finder. So you’d get a big flesh blob in the upper right corner. This happened so often it was a dad joke trope.
If you were on vacation and forgot a camera they actually sold disposable film cameras. They would take shit pictures and the prices were extortionate.
People would collect their best pictures and put them in photo albums. These were like big books with thick sticky pages and film covers. You’d peel back the film and stick on the photo and cover it. They were prized possessions.
Kodak built an entire business on selling photographic film, billions of dollars, industrial giant. They totally missed the transition to digital and basically went bankrupt. No idea what they do now, but it used to be a household name.
Kodak basically took the city of Rochester down with the ship. The folks up there are wonderful but the town is a shell of what it was. It was once basically a mini silicon valley, Bausch and Lomb of the eyeglass and lense fame, Kodak with cameras, Xerox with copiers, and basically all the industry needed to support those global giants. Anything optical owes a great debt to Lil ole Rochester.
You'll still find weird old office machines with "Rochester, NY" in the casting if you know where to look.
There are so many local pizza places where half the reviews are like "this place gives you the most cheese, 5 stars" and it's the worst pizza in the world. I once got pizza from such a place (only place in a small town I was passing through) and there was so much cheese the dough under the cheese hadn't cooked because the heat couldn't get to it. Took one but and threw it out.
I remember how when I was going somewhere with my mum I would be the navigator and keep track of where we were on the big paper map. It was more fun but less convenient than a GPS.
Finally I get to be interesting :grillman:
I can tell you tales of life not just before smartphones but before the internet itself.
First off, cell phones themselves were a pretty disruptive shift. You used to call your friends on a land line, agree to meet them somewhere, and then wait for them to show up. They’re not there after 10 minutes? No clue why. How long do you wait?
We had answering machines, if someone wanted to talk to you they had to call and leave a message, which was recorded on cassettes. Every so often you would have to change or rewind the tape.
I was a child during this time but as an adult with a cell phone now I imagine there were good and bad parts. Being reachable 24/7 makes work much more intrusive. But being able to know where your loved ones are at any time gives peace of mind.
on to smartphones… life before was not that much different. A lot of the benefits were already in different places, the cell phone just centralized them. Everyone had mp3 players, people had garmin/tomtom gps in their cars. The latter was a real game changer. Before gps you would have to look up the address to a place, write down directions, and hope you didn’t miss a turn. Before the internet you had to have maps. One of the companies was called key maps, it was like a hyper detailed book of maps with an index for every street in a geographic area.
Having said that there was less portability. Shitty restaurants got a lot more business, there was no yelp. On foot it was very easy to get lost. Asking people for directions was pretty common, even the cliche trope of pulling into a gas station to ask where’s the highway.
For contacts you would have numbers memorized, or for less used ones actually written down on cards. One company specializing in this was Rolodex.
People watched a LOT more TV. Like every waking hour was occupied by it. So this idea that we were some erudite society of scholars before the smartphone came around and ruined it all is just bullshit.
When you weren’t at home though you’d be bored a lot. Waiting was boring. That’s the biggest difference, we are never bored any more. If you went to the bathroom without a magazine you’d have to read the back of the shampoo bottle for entertainment.
For teenagers porn was a precious commodity. You had one, maybe 2 magazines that you either found or stole, and were intimately familiar with their contents. There were naughty channels that broadcast over the air but were scrambled, you could watch that and occasionally spot a titty.
One time there was some technical glitch that caused the spice channel feed to come in clear. I was like the road runner in how fast I found a tape and vhs’ed it. Probably recorded over my first communion or something lol.
That tape was among my most precious possessions. I wonder what happened to it.
That one porn magazine your cousin stole from his folks or something, it wasn't actually clear where it came from but you left it in the forest because that was like the one place adults didn't venture.
I've seen others refer to this phenomena as 'forest porn'
Ah yes a magical feat lost from this mundane world. As a teenager you used to be able to traverse the woods and find pornos left by the fae but alas, since man has encroached on the forest realm and angered the spirits that magic has long since been lost from this world.
Sometimes you would be out walking and stumble upon someone else’s forest porn, that was like finding gold
Me and a friend found a tree house with porn plastered all over the interior walls and ceiling.
I only know about this from the episode of IASIP where Frank
deleted by creator
i remember i had like 3 pages torn from some hustler. it wasnt even good shit, i think it was like the ads in the back mostly.
Be grateful for the things you had. At least you were not forced to resort to your mom's sears catalogs.
nah i def used Victoria Secret too haha
Ya once in a blue moon one would come in and it was like Christmas. I was too chicken to ever keep them or hide them though lol.
oh i definitely kept them shits haha. i honestly dont think my mom even shopped with them. or maybe i just want to believe that haha.
One more: texting was a PAIN IN THE ASS. The first widespread phone was the old Nokia bricks, you had the number pad plus 2 extra buttons I think. When you wanted to text you would have to press the number for the corresponding letter however many times (so like for A you would push 1 once or for C 3 times, etc). When they introduced T9, the first predictive texting with a dicitionary, that was probably the most meaningful change in my interaction with technology, it was a game changer. Of course now trying to go back and use T9 is excruciating, to think it used to be much, much worse
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Lol i forgot you had to pay for them. But you’re absolutely right. Then text speech made it’s way onto AIM
There was a very short-lived golden age in the heyday of flip phones with hard keys and T9 dictionaries where you could actually text and drive without taking your eyes off the road for an instant.
one of my first cellphones was a slide phone with a full keyboard. i could text on that motherfucker without even looking at it, perfectly. i can almost do it with smartphones if the screen is clear and i've gotten used to it, but having a tactile keyboard was a gamechanger
You literally didn't even need to remove the thing from your pocket.
i was a master at casually getting it under my desk
now you can pull a smartphone out in a meeting and no one bats an eye
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and if you lived in the US and had poor parents, texting was NOT FREE
If you went somewhere you had to take a camera. Before digital cameras it was film, and you had only so many pictures, so you had to be judicious. Every once in a while somebody would put a finger over the corner of the lens while shooting, which wasn’t visible in the view finder. So you’d get a big flesh blob in the upper right corner. This happened so often it was a dad joke trope.
If you were on vacation and forgot a camera they actually sold disposable film cameras. They would take shit pictures and the prices were extortionate.
People would collect their best pictures and put them in photo albums. These were like big books with thick sticky pages and film covers. You’d peel back the film and stick on the photo and cover it. They were prized possessions.
Kodak built an entire business on selling photographic film, billions of dollars, industrial giant. They totally missed the transition to digital and basically went bankrupt. No idea what they do now, but it used to be a household name.
Kodak basically took the city of Rochester down with the ship. The folks up there are wonderful but the town is a shell of what it was. It was once basically a mini silicon valley, Bausch and Lomb of the eyeglass and lense fame, Kodak with cameras, Xerox with copiers, and basically all the industry needed to support those global giants. Anything optical owes a great debt to Lil ole Rochester.
You'll still find weird old office machines with "Rochester, NY" in the casting if you know where to look.
All true, except that the folks are wonderful
There's shitty people everywhere but I ran into way more nice people in Rochester.
I don't even know what film rolls cost, I just know my parents dragged feet for months on getting new ones if I ran out :deeper-sadness:
It was a completely different world pre-internet, huh.
For better or worse, yes. It’s funny watching Seinfeld or something now probably half of the bits just wouldn’t happen anymore bc of smart phones.
I remember when Seinfeld still airing new episodes. Looking back, it seems like such a different world that it's hard to imagine I grew up in it.
I think you're underestimating how many people will give 5 stars to a plate with literal shit on it
There are so many local pizza places where half the reviews are like "this place gives you the most cheese, 5 stars" and it's the worst pizza in the world. I once got pizza from such a place (only place in a small town I was passing through) and there was so much cheese the dough under the cheese hadn't cooked because the heat couldn't get to it. Took one but and threw it out.
in the woods!
There used to be a whole section in the bookstore for books to keep in the bathroom, so you could read funny stories or trivia while shitting.
I remember my parents goofing around with those things when traveling for out of town stuff
I remember how when I was going somewhere with my mum I would be the navigator and keep track of where we were on the big paper map. It was more fun but less convenient than a GPS.
I loved it when my parents would go out for the evening because that's when HBO would show movies with a little bit of nudity.
Once I watched a whole feature length movie because it promised full frontal nudity and all it had was a flaccid penis in the final scene.
:deeper-sadness: