Published on 12, July, 2020
So as of this last week I no longer own a smartphone. I have decided to go fully old school. I have an old LG phone that looks like a Blackberry and just texts and calls with a basic VGA camera and no internet. I have even bought myself an old cassette walkman and I am going to put some of my favourite albums onto cassette so I have something to listen to
I tried all this a few years ago and it helped my mental health so much, made my head so much clearer not having the visual stimulation and endless sensory overload of having the internet in my pocket all day and endless apps and social media sites. After a couple of years I ended up getting a smartphone again, mainly cos of work and the fact that everyone there talked on whats app. Im not at work anymore now though, at least not in an office full of people at least
Might even get a camera and develop photos!
Feels like everyone is living their whole lives through these little screens in their pockets and I just want to get away from it and feel alive again. Also, society keeps saying its impossible to live without one these days so kinda makes me want to try!
Im really amazed how many people on here have got rid of their smartphone too! Its great how much freer you all feel without them
Going back to the olden days when i was about 10. We lived with my Nan, and when she first got a phone, a landline, iit was a shared line with one of our neighbours, that was the norm at the time, And sometimes we'd go to make a call but you could hear the neighbour talking, and we had to wait until they'd finished. We were one of the first in our road to get a phone, and we had friends/neigjbours who would come and knock asking could they use the phone, and sometimes the phone would ring and it would be someone wanting a neighbour, and we had to run out, up or down the road to get them to come. I remember my Grandad getting a little box with a slit in, next to the phone, for people to put pennies in.
Once there was an error on my mum's phone and it was a crossed line and we could hear our neighbours talking it was so funny. While listening we kept pression 1471 and the message would come across the call and the two ladies speaking on the phone kept laughing saying "its that voice again, here she goes again" they were in giggles, my mum and I laughed so much we had to put out hands over the mouth piece so they did not hear us. This went of for weeks till they fixed it. It was really hilarious, they nattered about all the gossip.
When we first had a landline it was a party line as that was cheaper. That meant someone else nearby shared it. If you picked the phone and they were talking you had to wait for them to finish before you could dial a number.