Distant Memories
The above photo I took in Casco, Maine.
Whenever I see an old landline Payphone like this it makes me think about the past. Things have progressed so much in the past 15 years that it's hard to even remember what life was like before Smartphones, Social Media, or Google. Sometimes I feel like if I don’t stop and think about the past that those memories will eventually fade away and I won’t remember what life was like at all before the new connected age that were in.
I was born in 1990 and I can remember not having the internet. I remember having 2-3 channels on tv and you didn’t really know what was going to play when other than the news and some shows that became staples like Seinfeld. I have memories of my family getting a desktop computer that we put in the livingroom. I remember playing some strange games that came with Windows where you woke up in a room and had to move by clicking different places to discover things in the room around you. It wasn’t really a game but showing off what the computer could do, at least I’m pretty sure that’s what it was meant for. Years later we got cable TV and had some more channels and a tv guide channel and also dial up internet. I remember the sound the computer would make when you connect to the internet and in doing so making the home phone unusable. People weren’t able to call you or leave messages on your answering machine if you had one while you were connected to the internet.
Through the years Cable or Satellite TV kind of progressed and with it the internet also did. I recall using Yahoo a ton when I was younger. Yahoo was used for search, news, instant messaging, keeping track of sports teams, and im pretty sure they had games on there as well. Eventually that all changed over to Google being the monster search engine. The first Social Media site that I really felt like hit big was Myspace. I remember it sort of connected things that other companies were already doing into one sort of central network and over the years it developed further into being even more connected. Myspace became a place where people would go when logging onto a computer. They would check their messages on there and see what their top 8 were doing. Bands and entertainers became big on Myspace, using the platform to get their content out there directly to their audiance. It was around this time of connectivity that I remember most people no longer having dial up but having broadband internet or something similar that allowed them to use the phone while also being online and allowed them to consume data at much higher speeds and at much higher capacity.
People also started to get new cell phones as they were becoming more affordable and practical that the giant bricks that used to be available. Texting though Blackberrys and Sidekicks became a huge deal for teenagers and young adults. I didn’t have those but did eventually get a tracphone that I could use for texting and making calls while out and about. At the height of Myspace I remember becoming aware of another Social Media company called Facebook. Facebook seemed like a watered down Myspace to me at first. People didn’t really have their own unique pages where they could display their top friends or have music playlists play when someone visited their profile. Instead, Facebook was a more adult feeling Social Media site in my eyes. I joined, but didn’t use it much the first couple of years. The cell phone that changed everything was the iPhone, which came out when I was a senior in high school in 2007. I didn’t get a iPhone because I was just a poor high school student, but I did get an android phone in 2009 and that was the start of what to me is the current age of computer tech that we’ve been in for about 15 years.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to go back to the age of leaving your house with only your keys and wallet. No worry about your cell phone or being connected to everyone on Earth at every moment of every day. I sometimes find it hard to relate to younger generations because they only know the connected world. Everything is now Googleable and connected. I am in many ways thankful that the world has progressed the way that it has, but seeing things like this old payphone brings back nostalgic feelings of a world that only exists in distant memories.