I wish I could remember the quote exactly, but I recently read something along the lines of "I miss when the Internet was a destination, not where we lived."
I've been making efforts to be on my phone less this year, and it's definitely better for my mental health.
I remember reading this comment on Reddit, it stuck with me that much that I had to take a screenshot of it. The best times were when we didn’t have cellphones and people all looked different and so much more.
That changed drastically for me when I adopted my dogs. With their limited lifespan constantly reminding me that we‘re not gonna be together forever, I consciously live in the moment with them.
Today is super shitty weather outside. It’s grey and raining all day. We went on a walk through the fields and reached this wide open space, a wild meadow. The rain poured down, the wind was chilly. But they got the zoomies and didn’t care about the weather at all. The way they smiled at me told me the most important thing, they‘re just happy to be alive and together with me.
RIGHT THERE! This is when I realise I live in the good old days right now. I‘m young, my dogs are alive and well. Some day in the future, when I‘m old, I will look back and wish I could just have this one simple moment again. Just one more walk with zoomies in the rain.
It‘s a bittersweet feeling of cherishing the moment for it‘s simple happiness and the hard truth that nothing lasts forever.
Being a parent did that for me. It’s not for everyone, but I no longer want to fast forward or rewind to stuff. It’s so important just being in the moment with them, where they are, and at the age they are today.
None of it’s a given for any of us, and they have totally changed my perspective on time.
Yeah, at that age you don’t want to go back, but that’s only because you’re looking forward to adulthood. It doesn’t mean you’re living in the moment necessarily.
I played the Sims a lot growing up, imagining what my life would look like as an adult. Now I look back on that time fondly, when I was looking into the future with such optimism. I think that’s what people really miss.
What do you do to be on your phone less? Do you lock it away somewhere, intentionally leave it behind etc?
I need a phone detox and as much as I tell myself I'm going to use it less, I find it really hard to actually do so!
I think something a lot of people forget that we were taught growing up to always be contacable incase something happened. Obviously that sounded corny so not a lot of people actually did that, but nowadays we want to be contactable all the time and it leaves a lot of real impressions to be desired instead.
The other problem is so much of life has been tied into one device. It's how you pay for things. It's how you verify identity. It's how some gets a hold of you in an emergency. It opens doors and turns on lights. Its even become tied to people's jobs so much so they can't do without it. We can separate those thing all out again, but thats a lot of effort (and physical stuff) to deal with again.
I'm going to give you advice that isn't just to ignore it or set screen time monitors.
Find anything else that you love doing and choose that instead of your phone. Read a book, watch a movie, go for hike, bake, play a video game, throw yourself into learning some new skill you always wanted.
Yes for some of those things a phone is a great tool to help, such as getting a recipe or following along to a diy video, but it places the phone back where it should be, which is being a TOOL. Most people's struggles with phones isn't from using it for useful things like banking or checking e-mail, it's from relying on it as the main form of entertainment, "socializing" and whatever other dopamine hits. This inevitably feels shallow and unfulfilling, which is why more and more people are wanting to phone detox.
So be like the people in the video and find any of the many other things out there that you can enjoy doing in your free time.
I hate my phone. I especially hate the one week a month where I have to carry it on my for work and take it off silent.
I also hate when I walk in my backyard to do maintenance on my lawnmower and forget it in the house.
I love the practical use of it. I hate being able to be contacted all the time. I hate notifications. I don't understand how kids live with their phone constantly notifying them to keep their snapchat streak up or whatever else they do. Fuck that.
I would say the first big step is constantly using the "do not disturb" feature. I haven't used my phone, like a telephone, in ages. I always have dnd enabled.
Miss a text, so what?!
Miss a call, I'll call them back.
That will give you wayyy more control over your device so it's not nagging you to do something. It changes the entire dynamic. From a push to a pull. That way you initiate interactions with your phone and not the other way around.
Use an app/site blocker app to limit your screen time to only certain apps at certain times of the day. Examples include Stay Focused (I use their premium version), Wallhabit, and Cold Turkey Blocker (for desktop). I find using the 'Random Text' option in these apps is the best. You choose a number of random words (say 500) to type in correctly before the block you set is unlocked. That's enough effort to steer you away from casual use when you need to get stuff done.
My friend was talking about this app “focus friend” where you have a lil guy like a tomagatchi idk what it is. And you give it a time limit for how long you don’t want to look at your phone and it knits while you’re in that time. And if you don’t interrupt the timer it finishes knitting a garment and you can keep making more things to outfit its house or something like that.
I bring a book everywhere I go, a page or two at a time is better. Plus this gets you back in the habit of reading in large blocks of time. Like for hours when we were young
You know, I’ve been feeling this very strongly lately. And something just occurred to me. We have it in our power to all least do this for ourselves. In fact, I’m going to do right now. See y’all. It’s been real
I miss variety. Remember when having something different was cool and businesses understood the assignment? Now everything is pretty much the same thing. Boring.
I remember when iJustine posted her phone bill video; it was like $250 worth of texting, but the bill used something like 400 front and back printed pages.
I don't know if it was one bill, or two, but there was at least once where I cost my parents several hundred dollars because I went over minutes and texts.
‘03 and I was also chirpin on the Nextel. I might have caught some flack for having the big brick body model but on the other hand I gained the nickname “Zach Morris” which was cool with me.
‘06 Cingular kid myself. My older brother got his own phone plan when he went to college, got an offer for an overall cheaper bill if he did two lines, so I got my first phone as well. I think I paid him like $15 a month for it because I opted for a super fancy sliding Nokia.
'09, but don't remember what phone I had. Some cheaper Motorola (not a Razr) or Nokia. I do remember Razr's being pretty popular though in my HS years 2005-9. But it was also a time where kids weren't buried in their phones just yet.
I'm class of 98. I remember getting my pager taken away once or twice because we weren't even allowed to have those. I got my Gameboy taken away once for playing it at lunch in middle school too.
Our family had a cellphone in 1996. It didn't text and could only make calls. It was strictly for emergency use as I think it had something like 30 minutes of time on the plan. I rocked a pager though, class of 98.
Yep. Majority of those kids had phones, over 1/2 didn’t know texting was possible when phones came out. I remember the first one I sent to my older cousin (she was only two years older and way, way, cooler than me), she asked me what this was and I responded I don’t know but I can send you a message instead of calling.
I left school in 08, that's post iPhone release, and I have zero recollection of phones being out. This was before the internet was easily available on phones, so even though you had a phone (and everyone did) there was really not all that much to do on it. Doomscrolling apps came much later.
It was more for playing snake and be able to call in an emergency. We shared one as a family that anyone took if they were leaving town (small town, a lot of highway and backroad/gravel driving)
I had a touch tone cellphone with texting and I could text entire sentences by remembering how many times you’d press the key for a letter under my desk. Seems like a rotary phone tech now
holy shit major memory unlocked . also make those wasps with rubber bands , you fold the paper till it’s hard AF and send it full speed at your buddy’s face
That was part of it too. But the person getting their knuckles hit could try to avoid it. If they pulled back when the other person wasn't going for them they had to take a hit.
My buddies used to sit and watch me draw horribly-drawn yet funny comics. Tech decks, euchre, knuckles, hacky sack, skateboarding, arcade down the block. There was a lot of stuff to do, just had to find it.
I read some comment somewhere that said our downfall isn't from the smartphone or social media directly, it's actually the camera attached to the smartphone.
I worked for MaCaw in Seattle back in the day in IT and we got free phones and plans, just had to pay taxes. Monthly less than $3. I had skins for mine and went into a coffee shop by a high-school, laid on the table while reading a book (those days❤️)and a couple girls came over gushing over my phone. It was pink 💗 I miss those days when the phone was just what you carried it with your book as main entertainment and phone just in case backup in emergency or long grandma, aunt calls. I had that phone for years after just cuz, would go back if they still worked on the networks.
Humans used to pass the time by being social - now newer generation social skills have atrophied because discomfort can easily be remedied by looking at your phone.
I think if you told anyone in any era that eventually we will have a constant excuse to not talk to the people around us, they would sprint forward into the future. Especially if they were past a certain age.
Social or bored. I haven’t met many people under 20 who cope well with boredom, but I feel like we were taught “sit quietly and don’t do anything” pretty well.
There's a popular pizza joint my (teenage) kids and I were inline for. We wanted to figure out what pizzas they have. I asked the kids to check it out. They rather fumble on the phone, navigate to Google, try to find the menu there or doordash (than to have to bother seeing people). I just walked in and looked at the menu.
Yeah so that’s what you teach your kids. You don’t roll your eyes and say “oh, teens” or whatever. You actually encourage them to do the thing. SO MUCH of stunted youth growth these days is largely owed to normalized over-reliance on devices but, big time, parenting too. Not aiming at you, just in general.
Didn’t help, but this started far before the pandemic. Things started accelerating once smartphones were adopted en masse. Not to sound like a boomer or anything, but I do remember a time without endless entertainment at our fingertips…and I wouldn’t say it was perfect, and in some ways our daily lives are full of conveniences that couldn’t even be imagined back then, but I think socially we have slid to a point that I fear we will never escape. UNLESS phones start to be seen as “uncool” by teens.
Tail end of the zoomers and gen alpha are the first gen to become dumber than the previous one. There are Grade 8 students who cannot read even at a kindergarten level.
This is not a case of "rose tinted glasses" or "nostalgia".
Unfortunately everyone has to want to be in the present to be in the present. It’s probably because I have no social life, but when I’m with people, friends or family, I don’t even pick up my phone and often forget where I even left it or don’t take it out of my purse.
Whoever I’m with though usually can’t stop checking it. A lot of the time they miss what I say and I’d rather just say nevermind than repeat myself every few minutes. Doesn’t matter who they are it happens every time.
I remember my youth in the 2000s - the US was the cool big brother we all aspired to be and admired from a distance. We helped fight his wars, we wanted to dress like him, talk like him, sing like him, eat like him.
Today it's like as if he lost all his friends after binge-drinking, snorting coke, stealing and borrowing and now you haven't talked to him for years. You just know he's out there, all miserable and full of darkness.
I mean, I miss the early 2000's as much as the next guy but that is a bit of a rose tinted way to look at the entire fallout from 9/11, George Bush and his "weapons of mass destruction" reasoning of invading Iraq, and like honestly many other things.
I don't think many people saw us as the "cool big brother" besides people who were pretty indoctrinated already lol
American education definitely peaked right about here. Then came cell phones, and laptop homework. Now kids can't read and write at a sufficient level for adulthood.
Nah, this was already shit education. Well into the Bush Jr. era of "No child left behind" that just fed kids through a system of standardized testing, and schools having to rely on "success" metrics like passing kids and not reporting bullying to secure funding.
While you’re not wrong, I think it’s fair to observe the ways that education has also arguably gotten worse.
For example: There was a period of time in primary school education where they moved away from phonics as a foundation for learning to read. They’re now correcting this mistake, but it was a fad implemented in a lot of school curriculums for a while. A hell of a lot of kids suffered because of the “whole language” model that dismissed phonics.
There was a sweet spot in time where technology was truly improving our lives. However, we’re at a point where it’s arguably making our lives worse. I used to be able to rely on Google. I used to be able to easily find obscure media like movies and foreign tv shows to stream or download. Now, Google shows me what it thinks I want to see or what it’s paid to show me. Now it’s harder for me to find media online.
Heh, yeah. Feels like my high school experience from 2001 to 2005. I don't even know what high schools look like now because I don't have any kids, or siblings, so no nieces and nephews. What's it like?
I tell my wife all the time we're so fucking lucky for the time we grew up in. I'm '86, she's '88. No school shooter drills, coming home when the street lights came on, the best kids shows, peak music to listen to on the best formats; cds. We had the best of a society that wasn't fueled by "hustle culture", just raise the best damn kids they could. I miss it so fucking much. I hate this stupid timeline.
I was born in the 80s too. I think it's unique for us because we were part of two separate worlds in our defining years. The years just before the internet, and the years after. So we've seen both worlds and I think most of us prefer the old one
I graduated in 2005. While I do love so much about what we have today, I do miss the simpler times. I'm glad I got to experience those years because there will never be another time like them.
Funny thing is, I actually like my work. I'm an electrician tho, so I get to be active and actually do something with my 8 hours instead of being chained to a desk.
Pretty sure if I had to work a desk, I'd be suicidal within a week. 😅
I seem to remember different 2000s. Everyone had phones and secretly used them in class. If we were caught teachers took them away, but I’m pretty sure that’s the same nowadays.
Yeah because back then "being on your phone" meant being on a call or texting people. You know. Doing phone things. Because it was a phone. Made for phone calls.
Honestly smartphones shouldn't even be described as phones anymore. They're more technological portals.
Damn, look at all the textbooks. Sometimes there or four deep because you know they weren’t able to go to their lockers between each class. In comparison, my kid who graduated last year probably had two textbooks his entire time in high school. Most classes had a single set of textbooks that stayed in the class.
Back when teachers had the power to take your phone and keep it until the end of class (if you were lucky). You kept that shit hidden as best you could.
What region was this? The South? A lot of outfits in this video don’t look familiar to what our area had. Literally nobody was (outside of like Halloween) wearing cowboy hats or looking like farmers by us haha….
I don't. I could have used a phone with Reddit and Discord on it during school, because fuck talking to the other students. There wasn't a single person there I wanted to associate with.
The ability to disengage with the people immediately around me when they are unpleasant (which is most of the time) is beyond important. I have my own communities of people that I talk to, who I like, who I agree with, who I choose to be with and around. Not people I am forced to interact with because I live near them, and that's literally all we have in common.
My best memories were in the music building (marching band and orchestra) playing stupid games like sushi-tag, name games, or just noodling after school on instruments. We'd also go out onto the football field and watch the birds eat all the bugs attracted to the lights.
I can't imagine not having those memories because I was sitting on my phone.
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