Unplugged…
T I M E T R A V E L T U E S D A Y
I miss these old relics.
I was just marveling this morning at how I could be talking with a friend by email while she’s was flying in an airplane, on her way to Canada. Then I realized there’s really no more alone time, unless we purposefully disconnect from all of our gadgets. I mean turn the POWER OFF — that sort of disconnecting. Otherwise aren’t we tempted to glance over and see who is trying to reach us?
Before the age of computers, internet and cell phones, traveling meant relying on old Ma Bell. We brought lots of change with us OR we reversed the charges when calling home. We’d find a vacant phone booth and shut that folding door. (Gee, I haven’t been inside a phone booth in let’s see…. well, FOREVER!) Talk about time travel! Those calls, as I remember, were very brief because they were costly and usually inconvenient. (And sometimes the phone booth smelled like urine!) I’d call home from college, once a week, usually on Sunday. It was just to say hi and “touch base,” basically to let my family know I was alive.
My grandmother used to say, “No news travels like bad news.” The implication was, “You don’t really need to call home, honey.” I think that was just her way of saving money. I mean, why throw a whole dollar away on “reaching out” when we’d all find out pretty darn quick if someone died. What can I say, she was hard core, she grew up on the prairie… (My grandma was a little like Half-Pint, actually more like Half-Gallon)
When I was young and we took a road trip, we were all alone in that car. No one back home had any idea where we were until we called them that night to check in. It was a great feeling — total freedom. We were completely disconnected. I loved it, and now I miss it.
My neighbor is not nearly as attractive as Gladys Kravitz.
Nowadays we’re tied down by cell phones and internet. Anyone can reach us at anytime during our travels. We’re trapped. Unless we tell our friends and family ahead of time, “I’m going off the grid,” “I’ll be unplugged” or “Leave me alone!” No one really respects boundaries, they just bust in. I was once on vacation in Florida with my family and I got a call from my next door neighbor, Gladys Kravitz, about something completely stupid. I was furious because she knew full well that I was on vacation. Her call completely took me out of relaxation mode and put me right back home and into worry mode.
So in conclusion, yes, cell phones and internet are wonderful. They can keep us safe and are amazing to have in an emergency. Yadda, yadda… But aren’t there times when we just want to unplug and go off the grid? I miss having that option. I get tired of being tied to family and friends. I don’t want to return calls or have records of calls received and made and sent. It’s all too much!!! I feel like I’m on a leash. (And I really dislike people who say things like, “Didn’t you get my message?” “Didn’t you see that I called?” “I left you a voice mail…” Blah, blah, blah!) Obviously, if I wanted to call you back, I would have! Sheesh!
Do you miss your down time, your freedom? Do you remember what the world was like without all this technology?
Hi,
I really don’t have that problem. I only use my mobile for emergency’s, no internet on it at all, yep one of those “just a phone”, the only people who have my mobile number is very close friends and a few family members, who also only have “just a phone”. 🙂
I actually had to use the old public telephone a couple of months back, not like the one in your photo, but a public phone at the shopping center, I couldn’t get the car started and there was not enough charge on my mobile to make a call. 😆
I don’t have the Internet on my cell phone, either. It’s pretty basic. My daughter says it’s ghetto. Haha! But I do carry this stupid iPad around like it’s oxygen. Funny that I had originally told my husband I would NEVER use an iPad. I practically laughed at him. He bought it for me anyway. I like to play games on it.
I don’t have Facebook or twitter, etc. I’m probably a very basic girl. that’s maybe why I hate any interference from anyone.
For emergencies… Yes! Haha! About the phone booth!
Oh I remember back in the days of us pioneer people when we used have to make a list of what we needed at the grocery store and if we didn’t remember we had to tough it out. No calling anyone to say, what kind of soap did you want me to get?
I enjoy telling my kids about how their parents used to have to cross the great snowy Cascades in a 1972 Toyota with no cell phone. (It was kind of dangerous now that I think about it.) They marvel! I love that!
Now it’s darn near impossible to tell any kind of social white lie if you don’t feel like socializing. You can say my phone died, but then they’ll say but I sent you an e-mail and a message on Facebook, Tweeted it and I called your husband left a text and message on his cell phone so you would miss my tupperware, candle, or jewelry party. All you can say is, what a coincidence that every electronic device we own was dead! I don’t think they’re buying it. Sigh . . .
And your right Lisa, there is no alone time anymore! The world was a much quieter place back then and slower. You could actually experience boredom. Not any more. (Oh, and I don’t make a move without my Ipad either that 37 bought for me that I insisted I didn’t need LOL) Wonderful post as per your usual! 🙂
The social white Lie or SWL — haha! That’s it, exactly. There’s no escape. I guess you just have to choose friends that are like minded and stay away from people who don’t have boundaries. I’m sure there’re plenty of people that think I’m lacking in the social graces department because I sometimes don’t pick up the phone and I don’t always respond to the messages they leave me. Lately I’ve taken to telling people, “Oh, I was off the grid.” OR, “I’m currently off the grid” OR “I’m going to be off the grid.” Thanks to my son, I now have a cool and cryptic thing to tell people to free myself of any adult responsibility! haha!
Haha! about 37! I think my husband now rues the day he bought the iPad since it’s easily taken his place! haha!
Sorry, I just had to jump in. Your iPad has taken the place of your husband? Market it! If an iPad does all the husband stuff (yes, you know what I’m talking about) then you’ve got a billion dollar idea! (You can return to your regular programing.) HF
Haha! Good for you Lisa for not picking up the phone or responding to every little thought. I must admit I am at a place in my life where my boundaries are pretty clear. But it sure didn’t used to be that way. But luckily in those days there weren’t so many ways to commicate. Now life would be darn near impossible if you didn’t set up those boundaries.
“I’m off the grid!’ You’re son’s a genius! Perfect response. It’s polite yet doesn’t invovled any further explanation.
It’s the same here with my Ipad. I think 37 rues the day he got me mine too. At night I’ve learned to only listen to my Ipad with one earphone so I can still comment when he remarks about the TV show we are both (supposedly) watching. I think I feel the same way about my Ipad that Charlton Heston felt about his gun. HA!
Hahaha! Well, I have gone out to dinner with my iPad before, and I find it to be very agreeable, also, it doesn’t snore or fall asleep watching TV. It’s really very attentive.
Maybe the iHusband is not too far away? : )
I remember the days before mobile phones and the Internet actually.
Mobile phones always struck me as something that people went bonkers over for no real reason. I hate people who panic because they left their phone at home.
I often don’t answer it if I can’t be arsed speaking to someone. If they moan about it I just tell them that if they pay the monthly rental I will answer it whenever they want.
The Gladys Kravitz caption was funny as well.
I think your attitude is the right one.
I try to keep my phone in the car. I don’t understand these people that bring it into the movie theater with them or out to dinner. Can’t they be unplugged for a couple of hours? What do they think is going to happen? I never want to be that dependent on anything or anybody.
In England, you buy minutes and when they run out the phone doesn’t work. Is that right? That’s what my son had. In the states you get on a plan and at the end of the month they charge you for your use. If you don’t keep track, you could end up with a HUGE bill. I’ve gotten bills from my kids for close to $1,000.00!!!! Yikes!
You can do both actually. The top-up pre-pay is called Pay as You Go and is generally used by students.
I have a monthly contract/plan.
The buying of minutes way started around about 1999 or so in response to kids getting huge bills.
Okay, that makes sense. I thought England was onto something… I like the practicality of pay as you go and then you don’t get stuck with a bill.
I too have a monthly contract as Miguel above has said. I don’t tend to make a lot of phone calls though, much prefer text messages and people know only to contact me unless they really need to. I like having my alone time at times when I’m not at work or out so it’s all good.
I suppose to get real cut off these days you’d have to go to a desert island somewhere or go and live with a tribe!
I’m ready for my deserted island. Take me away!!!
Pete, I knew you’d have it all figured out! Ha!
My phone’s answer machine thing actually says, “Thanks for calling. Please do not leave a message as I don’t listen to them. Ever.”
You can’t imagine the number of people who call and say, “OH, I hope you listen to MY message.”
Um, no? Once ever 6 months I clear them off–using 3 and 7 to skip through and erase.
Hahaha! I do the same thing!!! I NEVER listen to my cell phone messages. I don’t even know why I have that feature? haha!
All points well taken. And, Lisa, I am so busy that sometimes I can only communicate when I am on the phone in the car, driving to the next point of no return. You know it does not bother me that you never call or call me back. What I HATE is when someone gives me the guilt trip about the way I communicate. Don’t call me past 8 p.m., don’t send me a STUPID text, don’t send me a stupid e-mail for that matter. And, when you have moved away, you have moved away. When I visit my parents in SLC, people come out of the wood works to hang out! I’m all about a wig and sunglasses when I go to visit my parents. It’s all nonsense. Blah!
I’m glad my friends are so healthy! If I can illustrate my point further, I JUST listened to both your messages! hahah! That doesn’t mean I don’t love you or have you on my mind, it just means that I forget I’m living in 2012 and that I own a cell phone that collects messages. OY!
In the early 90s when I was in college, my dad had an 1-800 number attached to our home phone so I could call home without having to use a pay phone or credit card. It was genius. Yesterday, called me from his Blackberry and asked me why I didn’t reply to the text he sent less than 15 minutes earlier. Times certainly have changed.
Oh my gosh, that perfectly illustrates my point. It was a different world before cell phones and internet, a much slower, nicer, more peaceful world.
I wish there was a day of the week that started with a B so you could have a “Blow-Hard Boonsday” or whatever that day of the week starting with a B happened to be. I’m a very old fashioned kinda guy. I miss not being able to get in contact with people. People don’t bug me much because curmudgeon is my gimmick. Always has been. Always will be.
I remember using a payphone when I was 17. It’s weird to think even in my almost adulthood I didn’t feel that creepy doing it. I think payphones are mostly for drug dealers now. And people who like to get pricked by needles reaching for their change. What a frightening thought that is!
Yeah, I don’t even think “phone booths” even have phones in them anymore? haha! Now they’re just a place to run and seek shelter from the rain. When I was growing up they had them on almost every street corner in NYC. Imagine that.
I don’t really see you as a curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, yes… you, not so much.
I was just telling a friend recently about how there are no more pay phone booths in our town. or if there are, they are broken.. I’m pretty techno savvy but still limit what gadgets and whatnot I use..
The good old days of actually writing letters, long distance calls you had to save for, etc..
Gracious, what will the next 20 years bring?
I’m glad you brought up letter writing, it’s such a lost art. I still love to receive letters. My daughter is really good about sending little notes and post cards, etc. I always appreciate it.
It’s funny because all this technology has actually isolated us more, I think? In one way we feel like the world is smaller and faster to navigate through — easier to feel like a world community, I mean look at all of us blogging. BUT, I can’t help thinking that while we’re typing away on our keyboards we could be with our friends, neighbors, meeting people, sitting on the front porch, etc. There’s something to be said for face to face time… But yeah, I miss the way of the phone booth. ; (
I keep thinking that I’ve commented on all of your posts! Grrr. Forgive me?
I like to be unplugged, but I also need my internet. I don’t mind not having my cellphone around, but I love checking my email and going to all of my websites. I feel like I’m missing part of the world when I don’t have it with me. Like how I always have to go to the business center at whatever hotel we’re at. Because I have SO much business to do.
It’s getting to the point that people don’t REALLY remember what it means to be unplugged. Being without your cell phone or internet for a couple hours – seems very simple. I don’t think the next generation will know what it means to go for a week or two without. You have some recollection from your childhood, right? Now little kids that are just 2 years old are using iPads, etc. It scares me!
There are times that I notice that I can’t stop checking my phone for missed calls, texts, or get on my computer to see emails, FB, and WP. It feels like an illness when I could be doing other things. Which lately I’ve been doing (the other things) and having less time for connecting on the ol’ Intertron – so forgive me for missing some posts!
And there are other times when I misplace my phone and have no idea that anyone tried to call. Only to realize no one called me that day. It’s a great feeling.
Right. It’s nice to not have those pulls on you.
I’m sure you’re super busy and I’m always impressed at your high energy and organization. The fact that you have time to check in with people or write your blog amazes me.
I use my cellphone when I need to. If I get a call/message email I don;t feel like deling with, I just ignore it.
And I use phone booths as windbreaks to light cigarettes when it’s windy.
I LOVE THAT ANSWER! Yeah, those old phone booths make a nice shelter from the rain, or a house for the homeless, or as you’ve pointed out, a cigarette lighting shield from the wind. haha!
I think you have the right attitude. Some people feel they have to answer everything.