4 ms·

Its funny how many 90's sitcom episodes were based on this exact premise - the uncertainty of someone's location, not being able to contact them, etc. It was a

Its funny how many 90's sitcom episodes were based on this exact premise - the uncertainty of someone's location, not being able to contact them, etc. It was a major problem back in the day.

coldtea 10y ago
A major problem it wasn't. We could not care less about it. If anything, it was just how things were. We tool it for granted, and we didn't have much difficulty with it. A major movie/sitcom trope, yes.
tgarma1234 10y ago
I definitely remember using the phone at the bar I used to hang out at to call home to check my messages on my answering machine to find out where everyone else was planning to be. Or just walking around to familiar places to see if anyone was around. Life was a ton better living that way honestly. People were certainly more real. Now whenever I am around people I find they are compulsively checking their phones for messages and barely present in the moment at all. It's like... now everyone is always somewhere else. Another weird thing about cell phones is that in the pre-cell phone pre-internet era people did not take very many pictures of themselves and taking pictures at a party was kind of a special thing but certainly not the focus of everyone's activity all the time the way it seems to be now. I think it was more fun to just take pictures every once in a while and then have that interesting experience of getting film developed to find out how the pictures turned out. Memories stuck more then.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Similarly i recall my mom using a payphone at some diner during a summer trip to call the grandparents back home. Then some years latter dad got a mobile phone (a brick of a Nokia) that was used sparingly for the same task.
- hobs 10y ago
  Yeah the picture thing frustrates me, my parents used to have a photo drawer and albums with all the important stuff, now its just facebook. I remember her talking about them as if they were the one thing she would save in a fire, but I doubt she has ever looked at an old facebook photo more than once.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    I scanned a lot of my parent's old photos. I set my mom's screensaver to show them. It's one of her favorite things about the computer. Which I guess I don't have much of a further point, but a random slideshow pulled from hundreds of events (the screen saver I setup does the random per folder) is sort of a thing that wouldn't work without the photos being digital.

Its funny how many 90's sitcom episodes were based on this exact premise - the uncertainty of someone's location, not being able to contact them, etc. It was a major problem back in the day.

coldtea 10y ago

A major problem it wasn't. We could not care less about it. If anything, it was just how things were. We tool it for granted, and we didn't have much difficulty with it. A major movie/sitcom trope, yes.

tgarma1234 10y ago

I definitely remember using the phone at the bar I used to hang out at to call home to check my messages on my answering machine to find out where everyone else was planning to be. Or just walking around to familiar places to see if anyone was around. Life was a ton better living that way honestly. People were certainly more real. Now whenever I am around people I find they are compulsively checking their phones for messages and barely present in the moment at all. It's like... now everyone is always somewhere else. Another weird thing about cell phones is that in the pre-cell phone pre-internet era people did not take very many pictures of themselves and taking pictures at a party was kind of a special thing but certainly not the focus of everyone's activity all the time the way it seems to be now. I think it was more fun to just take pictures every once in a while and then have that interesting experience of getting film developed to find out how the pictures turned out. Memories stuck more then.

digi_owl 10y ago
Similarly i recall my mom using a payphone at some diner during a summer trip to call the grandparents back home. Then some years latter dad got a mobile phone (a brick of a Nokia) that was used sparingly for the same task.
hobs 10y ago
Yeah the picture thing frustrates me, my parents used to have a photo drawer and albums with all the important stuff, now its just facebook. I remember her talking about them as if they were the one thing she would save in a fire, but I doubt she has ever looked at an old facebook photo more than once.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  I scanned a lot of my parent's old photos. I set my mom's screensaver to show them. It's one of her favorite things about the computer. Which I guess I don't have much of a further point, but a random slideshow pulled from hundreds of events (the screen saver I setup does the random per folder) is sort of a thing that wouldn't work without the photos being digital.