What Did People Do Before Smartphones?

ch00f@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 53 points –
What Did People Do Before Smartphones?
theatlantic.com

Recently started using a LightPhone II when out of the house, and I found the article captured my current experience pretty well. It’s not so bad to be bored sometimes.

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We used pagers to tell people to call us back on payphones, possibly using collect call service. Music was listened to on Sony Walkmans, maybe a boombox if you wanted to be obnoxious about it. Newspapers were sold at every street corner to provide reading material.

I wouldn't say it was so different before smartphones. Everyone on the train was browsing the news using the copy of the local paper instead of a cell-phone connected to some news network.

Collect call from "wehadababy itsaboy", do you accept?

I'm glad I'm not the only one with this burned permanently into my memory.

i sometimes quote some of my favorites to the young generation and they look at me like im insane. 10-10-220, only a buck for the first 5 minutes and just a quarter after that for any long distance phone call!