When I was growing up.......and modern communication

I was thinking about a conversation with my darling Mstr13 – He wanted to visit some friends, I said ring them and find out what they are doing. He said I don’t have their phone numbers. I said, then how do you contact them? –Internet, was the response.

I thought back to when I was growing up, when I was 13yo. I grew up in a small town and we’d ring friends first thing in the morning (not before 9am) that would be rude, and we’d organize our day that way.

Then we I grew up and left school, same thing, you’d ring the house and organize something, if you were lucky they had an answering machine. If they didn’t, you’d try again later.

Then pagers were invented. Great for working people, great for people contracting, you worked out with family and friends codes, that when the number was sent through, you’d add and extra digit at the start or finish of the phone to signify something. 0=out, 1=in, 2=home soon

Then pagers had text capability – WOW – it was heaven, no more trying to remember what meant what. Mobile phones were around, but they were far too expensive for the average person to have. Mobile phones were for corporate type people.

Eventually the cost of owning a second hand mobile outweighed the cost of a pager and returning phone calls etc. So many people switched over to mobiles.

Now if you don’t have a mobile (or don’t answer it on the second ring) you are a luddite .

Technology has gone far these last 20 years, now it is common for people not to have access to a landline, to only have a mobile phone, everything is wireless and far more cost affordable.

The internet for those under the age of 20 years, is considered the norm, in fact life didn’t exist prior to that apparently!

I think what scares me, is that in an emergency, people won’t be sitting by their computer waiting for you to contact them. How will kids manage if there is an emergency and they don’t have access to a computer?

Mobile phones are great for 12-24hours and then after that you need 240v power to recharge them.

I suppose what I am saying is get something other than an online user name from people you considering friends, imagine putting out a call for “deep_throat”, whom you haven’t spoken to in a month. You know they live in Timbuktu, you know they go to “Prince School of the West” You think their name is Tom, but you have no idea what their surname is. Get their phone number! It would make life a little easier!

Take care out there