My sister, two years older, graduated high school and got an administrative job with Ma Bell in New York City. We were so excited because the job required that she have a home phone and my mother had to let it happen despite prior refusals. We were convinced not having a phone would forever damage our social lives or preclude our finding a husband. It was the 50’s and we were teenagers. Of course, Mother let us know that the bill for that phone would be examined in detail and the user of extra minutes restricted maybe forever.
The layout of our Bronx apartment was such that a small square was created by the doors to the clothes closet, the bedroom, and the bathroom with the remaining open space a direct line to my mother’s recliner She decided the phone would hang on the wall she could see. My sister, who already had a boyfriend, was smart enough to get the longest curliest cord available which could be stretched under a bed or in a dating crisis even be locked in the bathroom. We quickly learned optimum times and taboo topics. The phone’s rotary dial made surreptitious use out of the question, as you listened to the dial slowly click its way around number by number.
Experiences with that phone likely contributed to my dislike of phones in general, particularly after they came off the wall and became princesses. Not too many years later, I foolishly married, moved across country and phones moved from optional to critical, keeping track of three kids, my husband’s business and the times I waited too long for a call. Phones were supplemented by answering machines and we got annoyed if the caller didn’t leave a message, and later annoyed when they did. I wondered how the generation before ours kept track, but maybe they didn’t and it wasn’t so easy to say you would be late again.
As I’ve grown older the telephone has grown smarter, now a portable computer the size of a playing card that, from what I can see, not only rules your life (with Siri’s help) but records it for posterity. I am not sure I want to save my every word and every photo. Thinking about next iterations I foresee a melding of voice, photo and sound that moves from one platform to another via thought waves. Could we all hear the same message at the same time? That’s a scary thought maybe handy in an emergency but I can come up with some sci-fi scenarios where we might have an AI situation.
With time, the phone ruled, its increasing complexity becoming mandatory at home, work and play. The stats on phone use (3 to 5 hours a day depending on what country) are worrying. But those demands have fallen away in my life and I have decided that I will get off the smartphone tech train. I am writing letters in pen and ink again and it feels like a good thing. My chosen pen pals at first found it amusing but most are converted. I think about my words and what they mean and it feels like sending love. And there is time as those phone folks melt away, one by one. Somedays the absence of a phone call marks the loss of a friend. The irony of having lots of time for phone calls, just when you run out of people to call.
The first of every month I send a letter (typed) to my only grandchild, who is now a man in his twenties. He does not respond; his preferred communication avenue is text, and I have given him permission to opt out. I persevere, giving him good advice, sharing my take on the world news, commenting on the political scene, and asking questions I know he won’t answer. That is okay. He knows I love him, and I tell myself someday he will reread those letters and be amazed at what a smart grandmother he had.
.
I have gone a step farther and bought a new old phone, cutely called a Flip 2. It is bright red, small enough when flipped to fit in the palm of my hand. I can send and receive phone calls and texts. I am sure it does a lot more as the instruction booklet is bigger than the phone. But that is all I need. Maybe my daughter could use my old wall phone instead of calling “Hey Siri” every time she can’t find her iphone. Siri got tired of being pestered and now she just says, “Yeah!”
I was a service representative for panel when I graduated from Cal Berkeley.. so I can say “
Been there. Done that.”