Imagine if every app on your phone was its own physical device. The stopwatch app is a literal stopwatch. The alarm app is an alarm clock. The camera app is a physical camera. There's a massive amount of convenience when 20+ physical devices all gets crammed into a single rectangle that's smaller than almost all of those individual physical devices.
Talking pictures was a massive ordeal because unless you were using Kodak disposable cameras, you had to either develop the film yourself, which the vast majority of people did not do, or you had to drive to a Walmart and had a complete stranger do it for you. And yes, you had to take pictures with the knowledge that a complete stranger would be looking at those pictures as well and there's nothing stopping this complete stranger from developing a second copy for their own personal use.
I remember having a walkie-talkie with me when I was a kid. It honestly wasn't that different from how people would use a smartphone today. My parents would drop me off at the park or I would ride my bike across the neighborhood with my walkie-talkie, and when the sun was going down, they would use their walkie-talkie to tell me to come home. Obviously, zoomers onward would just use a smartphone instead of a walkie-talkie. It goes back to my point about millennials and older having to juggle a collection of multiple devices instead of just using one device.
People would literally dox their name and address in these massive yellow pages. It would be unthinkable today, but that's literally what people did back then. Someone here made a point about the terminator being able to find Sarah Connor's address by just looking up her name and address. That was 100% true and absolutely nobody thought that was weird.
Before Google maps and before GPS became reliable, you had to use paper maps. I remember my dad having these books of maps for all the city in the county and surrounding areas. I don't know if they were provided by a municipal agency or by AAA. And like a true boomer, he fucking hates Google maps and GPS, only begrudgingly using it on his laptop at home. "But what if the Internet goes out and Google maps doesn't work no more? Huh, you ever thought of that?! I know this friend of a friend who almost drove off a cliff because Google maps said it was okay to drive but he would've driven to his death!" He would rather write down the directions on a blank piece of paper than use Google maps.
When you wanted to hang out with friends, you had to call their landline, and most of the time, it would be their parents' who pick up the phone. There's a game where you had to make up something, like say lie about how you need your friend to help you with a group project when you really wanted to play videogames with them and the parent knowing what you're really up to but still humoring you along.
I think people were more likely to hang out than spend time at home. Before smartphones and the ubiquity of social media, there wasn't a standard way to communicate with people. Not everyone had AIM or MSN Messenger, not everyone had flip phones, not everyone had an email address, not everyone's browsing the same Internet forums, so the only guarantee way to communicate with people is to talk to them in person (ie hang out). Now, people can meet their basic social needs with social media, which means people are now far more likely to just stay home.
The idea of zoomers having uniquely short attention spans is completely bunk imo because my millennial experience as a child was being bored a lot when I'm not in front of a TV. I would be bored out of my mind when my mom was shopping groceries while the zoomer kid would just be dicking around on their smartphone instead. It's not like being bored out my mind somehow meant I had a better attention span. This seems to be true to gen x if what a gen x coworker's experience is representative of their generation. Gen x and millennial kids just got bored a lot while zoomers are only bored when they don't have their smartphones. So much wasted time at the dentist reading a bunch of shitty magazines to pass the time.
Another small thing, but the only way to get reliable news about weather is to watch TV or use even older boomer tech called the radio. In general, a lot of things were "you had to watch TV." Social media sucks, but network TV sucks too. So much of your personal time had to revolve around TV because that's the only way to get info. We're talking about a time where not everyone had an email address or even a PC. If zoomers are glued to their smartphones, millennials and gen xers (and probably boomers too) were glued to the TV. In many ways, smartphones are just miniature TVs that you can carry around, among other things.
In general, smartphones are a massive QOL improvement. What actually suck is social media and predatory phone games. But if you just use your smartphone as a phone/watch/alarm/stopwatch/map/camera/camcorder/journal/phonebook/music player/pager, it's a completely magical device.
People would literally dox their name and address in these massive yellow pages.
White pages. The yellow pages were for business listings. It's how you'd find a plumber, or a furniture store. Blue pages (a thin strip in the middle of the phone book) were government listings.
And it wasn't "doxing yourself". Everyone was there. It was a proud sign of adulthood when you got your own listing in the phone book.
If someone had moved to a new city, all you had to do was go there and look them up in that city's phone book. Presto, reconnected with your lost friend.
Imagine if every app on your phone was its own physical device. The stopwatch app is a literal stopwatch. The alarm app is an alarm clock. The camera app is a physical camera. There's a massive amount of convenience when 20+ physical devices all gets crammed into a single rectangle that's smaller than almost all of those individual physical devices.
Talking pictures was a massive ordeal because unless you were using Kodak disposable cameras, you had to either develop the film yourself, which the vast majority of people did not do, or you had to drive to a Walmart and had a complete stranger do it for you. And yes, you had to take pictures with the knowledge that a complete stranger would be looking at those pictures as well and there's nothing stopping this complete stranger from developing a second copy for their own personal use.
I remember having a walkie-talkie with me when I was a kid. It honestly wasn't that different from how people would use a smartphone today. My parents would drop me off at the park or I would ride my bike across the neighborhood with my walkie-talkie, and when the sun was going down, they would use their walkie-talkie to tell me to come home. Obviously, zoomers onward would just use a smartphone instead of a walkie-talkie. It goes back to my point about millennials and older having to juggle a collection of multiple devices instead of just using one device.
People would literally dox their name and address in these massive yellow pages. It would be unthinkable today, but that's literally what people did back then. Someone here made a point about the terminator being able to find Sarah Connor's address by just looking up her name and address. That was 100% true and absolutely nobody thought that was weird.
Before Google maps and before GPS became reliable, you had to use paper maps. I remember my dad having these books of maps for all the city in the county and surrounding areas. I don't know if they were provided by a municipal agency or by AAA. And like a true boomer, he fucking hates Google maps and GPS, only begrudgingly using it on his laptop at home. "But what if the Internet goes out and Google maps doesn't work no more? Huh, you ever thought of that?! I know this friend of a friend who almost drove off a cliff because Google maps said it was okay to drive but he would've driven to his death!" He would rather write down the directions on a blank piece of paper than use Google maps.
When you wanted to hang out with friends, you had to call their landline, and most of the time, it would be their parents' who pick up the phone. There's a game where you had to make up something, like say lie about how you need your friend to help you with a group project when you really wanted to play videogames with them and the parent knowing what you're really up to but still humoring you along.
I think people were more likely to hang out than spend time at home. Before smartphones and the ubiquity of social media, there wasn't a standard way to communicate with people. Not everyone had AIM or MSN Messenger, not everyone had flip phones, not everyone had an email address, not everyone's browsing the same Internet forums, so the only guarantee way to communicate with people is to talk to them in person (ie hang out). Now, people can meet their basic social needs with social media, which means people are now far more likely to just stay home.
The idea of zoomers having uniquely short attention spans is completely bunk imo because my millennial experience as a child was being bored a lot when I'm not in front of a TV. I would be bored out of my mind when my mom was shopping groceries while the zoomer kid would just be dicking around on their smartphone instead. It's not like being bored out my mind somehow meant I had a better attention span. This seems to be true to gen x if what a gen x coworker's experience is representative of their generation. Gen x and millennial kids just got bored a lot while zoomers are only bored when they don't have their smartphones. So much wasted time at the dentist reading a bunch of shitty magazines to pass the time.
Another small thing, but the only way to get reliable news about weather is to watch TV or use even older boomer tech called the radio. In general, a lot of things were "you had to watch TV." Social media sucks, but network TV sucks too. So much of your personal time had to revolve around TV because that's the only way to get info. We're talking about a time where not everyone had an email address or even a PC. If zoomers are glued to their smartphones, millennials and gen xers (and probably boomers too) were glued to the TV. In many ways, smartphones are just miniature TVs that you can carry around, among other things.
In general, smartphones are a massive QOL improvement. What actually suck is social media and predatory phone games. But if you just use your smartphone as a phone/watch/alarm/stopwatch/map/camera/camcorder/journal/phonebook/music player/pager, it's a completely magical device.
White pages. The yellow pages were for business listings. It's how you'd find a plumber, or a furniture store. Blue pages (a thin strip in the middle of the phone book) were government listings.
And it wasn't "doxing yourself". Everyone was there. It was a proud sign of adulthood when you got your own listing in the phone book.
If someone had moved to a new city, all you had to do was go there and look them up in that city's phone book. Presto, reconnected with your lost friend.