20 (plus) questions about what we did before cell phones

I ran across this list the other day...

20 Questions I Have For People Who Were In Their 20s Before Cell Phones & Internet by Samantha Matt on forever twenty somethings

1. How did you make plans?
2. How did you CANCEL plans?
3. How did you know who was calling you before you picked up the phone?
4. How did you get rid of the fear that is calling people?
5. How did you find out information about people before you went on dates with them?
6. How did you find people to date in the first place???
7. How did you keep tabs on exes?
8. How did you keep tabs on what your entire graduating class from high school was doing?
9. How did you look for jobs?
10. How did your parents get in touch with you when you were out? 
11. How did your survive waiting for meetings, appointments, trains, or anything without being able to pass time by pretending to look busy on your phone?
12. How did you do ANYTHING at work before email?
13. How did you tell co-workers (or someone else you were meeting) that you were going to be late when you were stuck in traffic or stuck on some disabled subway car?
14. How did you sign up for classes at the gym?
15. How did you know where you were or where you were going ever?
16. What did you have to do if you broke down on the side of the road?
17. How did you always have change on you to use these pay phones?
18. How did you research anything for school? Did you have to go through the Encyclopedia?
19. How did you find out about the weather?
20. How did you stay in touch with friends?

Uh, I was in my 50s, I think, before I had a smartphone and 40 before I had Internet access, and I still can't remember...

1. What did we do during boring meetings and lectures?
2. How did we keep track of our loyalty cards?
3. How did we video chat with our grandchildren?
4. How did we bore others with pictures of our grandchildren?
5. How did we remember where we parked at the airport without taking a picture of the space?
6. How did we find our spouse in the grocery store?
7. How did we find our misplaced cell phones without calling the misplaced cellphone with another cellphone?
8. How did we convert foreign currencies when traveling?
9. How did we figure out in what movie we last saw an actor whose name we don't remember?
10. What did you use to set an alarm?
11. How did you take pictures?
12. How did you workout without getting bored? (Wait, there was this thing called a Walkman.)
13. How did you keep track of receipts and phone numbers and mailing addresses?
14. How did you keep kids amused during a car trip or in a restaurant?
15. How did you know if a restaurant or hotel was going to be any good?
16. How did you know if your kid was missing any assignments in school or had any unexcused absences?
17. How did we pay our monthly bills?
18. How did we know what our checking account balance was (and why do we call it a checking account)?
19. Where did we get our jokes?
20. How did we know what our friends were reading and how did we publish our own book reviews?

 And your questions?

Image source

Comments

[ksol]

Oh, good grief, it sounds like a list of learned helplessness. The short answer to a lot of them is "we didn't, and we managed just fine." I went to Alaska for the summer and maybe called my parents every week or two on a pay phone. No one expected you to check in from the road constantly. And I can't recall ever being afraid to actually call someone.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Susan,

I think the list was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek. I agree - we seemed, somehow, to manage when whole minutes went by without contact with others!

Doug​

[ksol]

Should have realized that before I posted!

Tongue in cheek or not, I can be a crabby Gen X-er sometimes who doesn't quite get the appeal of hyper-connection, although I'm no slouch with Internet and cell phone. There's just something to be said for solitude, and for unplugging.

[Lisa]

Doug,
I read this when you posted it (and laughed) and I just read it again (and laughed again). The one that really hits home is..."How did we find our misplaced cell phones without calling the misplaced cellphone with another cellphone?". This is one of the reasons I have two cellphones with me at all times.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Lisa,

Yeah, the calling the phone to find it happens around our house a lot as well. (Not to find MY phone though, mind you.)

Doug​