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I’ve noticed, as I get older, I’m becoming more nostalgic. I long for the days gone by from my childhood. I’m 45 years old, so, it doesn’t seem like it’s THAT long ago, but, technology has come so far! There are quite a few things lately that I just miss and wouldn’t mind having back in not only my life, but my son’s life. So he can appreciate life. Although, I wonder if he would after how easy his generation has it! lol. Here are 15 things we don’t do anymore because of technological advances:
- Memorize phone numbers – Our cellphones store everything! Why should we have to remember something so pesky as a phone number or address? I think I know about six phone numbers out of all of my family and friends lol. There aren’t many phone books in our homes anymore!
- Using a rotary or push button phone – Remember when you mad a mistake with a phone number? It was over. You had to hang up the phone and start over. We found a vintage phone in an antique shop on vacation one year. My son was playing on it, dialing numbers he remembered. He made a mistake and asked how to fix it. I told him to put the phone back in the cradle, pick it up and start dialing again. Had to laugh at the look on his face!
- Phone booths – About five years ago, I did come across a phone booth on my road trip down the coast in California. I had to laugh because, who carries coins anymore?? And who needs them now when we have our cell phones on us 24/7? Unless you forget your charger. But, that’s just a matter of stopping at the store and picking another one up.
- Sending mail – I remember when I was younger, my cousin in Oklahoma and I used to write letters back and forth. Talking about what was going on in our lives. Birthday Cards and Christmas Cards! I used to LOVE getting them in the mail. This year I intend to send all of my close family and friends birthday cards. I’m excited about this! And I do still send Christmas cards every year.
- Paperback books – Now, I know there are still some hold outs. But, I will admit, I am one of the one’s who went over to the dark side and I have a Kindle. I absolutely LOVE my Kindle. As much as I love to read, it was hard to pass up the chance to hold 3,500 books in my hand at one time! I still have some paperback books when I want to enjoy the smell of a good book :). But, now, there are so many ways to read, or even be read to. Like the Amazon Echo Show. A friend of mine sent me a picture of her listening to my book, Cavern Cove. I didn’t know my book was on audio! lol
- Visiting bookstores – Leading from the previous, visiting bookstores is not high on peoples list of things to do anymore. If you have a Kindle, or a Nook? Just go online and get your books. Borders was a casualty in this unfortunate trend. My son still likes to go there with friends though. Gave me a huge smile when he sent me this picture of him next to my book at Barnes and Noble :).
- Calling friends or family to see where they are – The iPhone has a nifty little app to find your friends. Just pull it up and you can stalk them like a pro lol! Of course, you have to choose who you share your location with for that to work! I already told my sister and brother in law that I’ll be sharing my location with them when I hit the road to live my RV lifestyle! If they see me in the same location for more than two weeks and can’t reach me by phone, send help!
- Printing Photographs – This is one thing I want to remove from my list of things we don’t do anymore. We always take photo’s on our phone’s now. And it’s all digital. I don’t think I’ve updated any of my picture frames in a few years, except for my son’s school pictures. I’m not saying go hog wild and print out every picture! Who has the space for that??? But, definitely start to print out those really special pictures :). And if you have a lot of pictures and you are looking for ways to free up space in your home, you may want to consider digitizing the photos. Have someone (if you can’t or don’t have time) put them on a jump drive for you and you can choose what to do with those hundreds and hundreds of photo’s that you’ve had from before using your phones.
- Calling the movie theaters to get accurate showtimes – Remember listening to those recordings when you called the movie theater? And if you’re movie was the last one listed, you were on there forever! Thanks to Fandango, you can now just pull up the app and you’re good to go!
- Music Collection – Although I love listening to the original vinyl albums, and record players are making a comeback! Like my books, having all of my music from many different singers on my phone is a blessing. While letting the phone hook into the bluetooth in your car and going is good, I do still love listening to our local radio station. One that I’ve listened to since I was 13! And I thought it was great when they came out with the CD cases so we didn’t have to have stacks and stacks of the jewel cases taking up space in our glove boxes.
- Run to the store frantically for a last minute gift – Who needs to do that when you have Amazon Prime? Two day free shipping? Place your order and go on about your day. Which, if you live in a small town that doesn’t have much in the way of shopping, this can be a good thing. Especially with gas prices and then having to drive 30 – 45 minutes to the nearest store? Let it come to you! There are some items, if you place an order of X amount, you can even get it the next day free!
- Getting your cashed checks back in the mail – This one I’m going to say, I’m totally fine with! LOL. Receiving that thick envelope from your bank each month and having to match up all the cashed checks to your checkbook to make sure there were no errors? That’s one time suck I’m happy to put on this list of things we don’t do anymore! And I’m sure the banks are appreciative of this as well. Saves them a lot of money on postage when it goes over a certain amount of ounces.
- Mapping out your road trip on a map – It’s road trip time! Pull out your handy road map atlas and map out your road trip. Dog ear each page that you will need for your trip so you have your roads well known. Make a wrong turn? No problem. Pull over and lay the map out on the hood of your car to see where you’re at. Now? We pull up waze and we’re told the fastest way to get somewhere. You can even select if you don’t want to pay tolls, or, if you want to avoid highways. I’m kind of on the fence about this one! lol. I like the idea of getting lost and hunching over a map, looking at the view around you like it will tell you where you’re at!
- *69 – This was one of my favorite features as a teenager! You know how it is. Prank calls and no one will know who you are. We were able to at least find out who the last person called was with *69. Now? There’s no mystery now unless you block your number lol.
- Mistakes on Typewriters – Sure, there was the backspace if you had the whiteout tool, but, with laptops? It’s magic! Your mistake is gone. But I have to laugh at how many mistakes people STILL make, even when they have it easy with spellcheck!
What on this list do you miss the most of things we don’t do anymore? What would you add to this list? Comment below or share on my Facebook page!
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If you enjoy reading, you should check out my YA Paranormal book, Cavern Cove! Click the image to be taken to Amazon. It is also available at Barnes and Noble for your Nook and in Paperback! It’s also available on iBooks!
I miss some of those things. But I will admit that I still read paper books. I have a kindle but I just love real books. And I love to visit the library and bookstore. It might sound strange but I love the smell of books. lol.
I enjoyed this post very much because I still do something of these things. I like getting pictures printed off and several years ago I used a pay phone that was in my community college. It was so much fun(nerd) I talked to my friend for 15 minutes on the phone. There is also a whole entire world of snail mail communities out there. I have been pen palling since 2010. I am in a FB group of about 11, 000 women. I also have a Polaroid camera. I wish we had a land line though. I I have this rotary phone that is made to look antique and I works and I would so use it if we had a line. I also have a typewriter, but I don’t really use it. I remember when I first started working back in 2009 I was appalled that I had to have direct deposit. Only my first check I had to go in cash. I hated it. I didn’t want to have a card and have to have an account. I just wanted everything to be in cash. I really don’t mind using checks, but cards are easier, although I prefer cash. I don’t even have any checks. As far as calling people. This year I have decided I am going to start calling people on their birthdays to tell them happy birthday. I had me a birthday calendar made so I could keep up with everyone’s birthdays a lot easier.
This was a fun read. We saw an empty phone booth the other day. I had to explain to my son what it was.
I really like this post. Now, some of these I’ve never done like sending mail or using a pay phone but I do remember using my grandma’s rotary phone (which she still uses til this day). My kids are always fascinated by it. I still like to visit the bookstore just not as often now because of how far it is. I just prefer physical copies or digital. If I can think of anything that I miss doing, it would be going out in the spring and summer and actually picking berries, peaches, and plums. I can’t do that anymore and I hate that my kids may never get that experience.
Love this post, did one similar last year and they are always so much fun. Believe it or not, I still dial a phone in my home office, buy, write and mail cards but I can’t for the life of me memorize cell phone numbers – I do however, remember out telephone number from the 60s!
I have to admit I still use my atlas. I love just picking a direction and just driving. I don’t get to do that often enough!
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I still love going to bookstores. Whenever I visit a new place, I look up bookstores and stationery stores in the area, so I still use snail mail too!
Technology is both great and terrible all rolled into one convenient package, ha! I love technology for several of the reasons you listed, but I do miss the days where we used to play outside and our phones were not connected to our hands and faces!
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It’s sad that traditional bookstores are disappearing along with many other businesses that relied on old technology.
How long until we no longer teach kids how to write using pen and paper?
Every new generation has been sad about the things that are no longer. While I enjoy doing some of these for kicks, I am absolutely stoked by the advent of technology. I’m 54!
This is so TRUE! Especially the part about memorizing phone numbers – NOONE does that anymore since our cellphones does it all for us. I recently had problems with my cel phone and lost ALL my phone numbers! Imagine the horror. So since then, I do keep a backup list of all phone numbers on the computer. I learned the hard way that technology is great..BUT it can fail us.
I took a photo of the phone booth I saw in California, too!
I love you list. I don’t miss memorizing phone numbers, but I’m working hard to remember Loved-One’s.
I love my Kindle, too. Besides having a lot of books in my hand, I love that I can tweet out quotes, highlight and add my own notes without ruining it. I do like that I can see what other readers found “Highlight-worthy”)
I like your shame-free plugs and your disclaimer at the end. I must do the same on my blog.
(Find my books, A SHIP OF PEARL and THE FABLE OF LITTLE TZURIE on Amazon, too.)
Good list. Ironically I just talked my sister off the ledge because she wants to live in a cave with a nice bathroom and electricity because she is so fed up with technology! I miss appliances that last a long time!
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A great, nostalgia-inducing read – thank you! I’ll never give up on “real” books though… Nothing beats the smell and feel of a new book under your hands…
I STILL COLLECT CD. THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE PHYSICAL CD WITH THE BOOKLET AND LYRICS AND SO ON THAT I CANNOT LET GO OF. PLUS, I REALLY LOVE TO SEE THEM ON THE SHELF AND TO BE ABLE TO SHOW MY MUSICAL TASTE TO PEOPLE WHO VISIT ME.