Gen Xers and boomers discuss the pros and cons of life before cell phones

Isn't it wild that we're living in a time where a big chunk of the population knows what it's like to live in a world without cell phones and a big chunk don't and never will? Gen X was the last generation to have a fully cell-phone-free upbringing, and considering how much our modern phones have influenced life on Earth, that difference is significant.

It's wild to think that young people today have no concept of what life was like without cell phones being the norm. People with kids often share stories of trying to explain how we navigated without Google Maps or how we let someone know we were running late or what we did when we were standing in a long line. It's a whole new world, for better or for worse.

Someone asked the /AskOldPeople subreddit, "Was it nice to live without cell phones?" and Gen Xers and boomers reminisced about the good and the bad of the disconnected life. Like most things, the transition to cell phone ubiquity has had its up sides and its down sides, which they tried to explain for the youngster who asked.

PROS OF LIFE BEFORE CELL PHONES

Not having your youthful stupidity recorded and broadcast

There were lots of shenanigans in the 70s, 80s, and 90s that no one will ever know about, thank goodness.

"I think one of the greatest perks of not having smart phones back then, is that all of the stupid things we did and said were not documented."

"I was SO cringe as a teenager. I’m glad there’s a very minimal digital footprint of that."

Young people were free to just be without every move being documented.Photo credit: Canva

"I’d be in jail if I had a smart phone back then."

"Bwahahahahahahahah my husband and I were just talking about this. We are a fairly normal couple now with two children and a dog but Lord if there was video footage of things we did when we were in our twenties. I'm so glad that there's no evidence for our children to see the debauchery."

"I'd never be able to hold a job."

People enjoyed more face-to-face interaction

This is probably the most obvious pro of not having cell phones. People can still do this, of course, but we're not forced to.

"People hung out and interacted more. You didn’t see families at restaurants all looking at their phones. People were more connected on a personal level."

"Absolutely! If I were to take a photo in a restaurant today you’d see most people looking at their phones and not engaging. And a restaurant photo taken in the 70s, the only people I recall who didn’t engage with each other were older married couples. The differences are stark."

Hanging out was just hanging out.Photo credit: Canva

"I struggled the first few years that phones were big when everyone was at thanksgiving staring at their phones and nobody was talking to each other. Now I’m used to it and heck I probably do it myself now..it becomes the new norm."

"Yes. I spent a lot more time staring into space and thinking when alone and it was wonderful. Also, not hearing from friends or dates after a day or so didn’t mean they hated me."

More freedom

In some ways, smartphones have opened up the world to us, but they've also created addictions and a style of life that's incredibly busy and overstimulating.

"Able to be actually completely unavailable. Reading books in my downtime. Silence. Darkness. True reflective solitude. Hell yeah it was good."

"GenX here. Things were more spontaneous. We’d leave messages and notes for friends. If you missed it, you missed it. We had more mental freedom. Meeting people was more fun. Making eye contact out at a nightclub or party was a thing."

"There was no anxiety when you left the house. You left the house and people knew you were leaving and then knew you weren’t gonna be back for a certain amount of time and if they had questions for you, they would have to wait until you got home. People had patience. Because you knew you could not get an answer in that exact second in that moment. The amount of people who get offended when you don’t text them back immediately is staggeringly stupid."

Before cell phones people hung out and were choosy with their photos.Photo credit: Canva

CONS OF LIFE BEFORE CELL PHONES

Lots of waiting around for people to call

Gen Z's minds are often blown trying to imagine not being able to text someone, much less having to just wait around by the phone for them to call.

"I recall sitting by the phone in the house for hours waiting for an expected call, wishing I could go out and do something. There was some good and some bad. We'd have loved to be able to contact friends without being home."

"That's what I remember too. And as a teen, relying on parents/siblings to give you messages back in the dark days before answering machines."

When you were waiting for a call, you had to stay close to the phone.Photo credit: Canva

"Back in 95, When I sent my mom a message on her pager to call me, I would never leave the phone. I would sit there waiting all night! Reading magazines most likely. Or drawing."

"I love this comment because now I'm remembering the downsides. My friends all out having fun without me because I wanted to stay home and see if a stupid boy was going to call me and my parents giving me crap about it. Also constantly fighting with my sister about being on the phone to the point that we had to have a timer for how long we could be on a single phone call. Or driving around looking for parties and trying to figure out where people were hanging out and just spending the whole Saturday in the car feeling frustrated because there was nothing to do. Still, I think it was mostly positive. We actually had to be with people without having to document everything or post it online."

Less safety and ease when traveling

Those who miss the pre-phone days may be forgetting what a pain it was to travel and how much less safe you felt if you got lost.

"I do a lot of traveling alone and if something happens to my car I make a phone call and get road service. That makes this phone priceless."

Having a handheld GPS is pretty darn convenient.Photo credit: Canva

"My wife was being followed on her walk in a deserted park. The guy was getting very aggressive. She called me on her cell, then the police. I got there quickest and 'dealt' with the creep. My cousin had a blowout on the highway and went off the highway into a snow covered ditch. She used her phone to call for help and did not die in the -30 weather. I will take these obtrusive calls any day of the week. Like any other tool, it's how you use it. A good "do not disturb" setting with important people excepted from that list is the way to go. Overall, it is like any other tool - it's how you use it. As an older guy, the internet and smartphone is the best advance I have ever seen in technology and I embraced it from day one."

"It was awful. My town had no transit and you had to prearrange rides and miscommunication was common. Lots of yelling. And finding a location at night in the rain was horrible whereas Maps pinpoints your location and where you are trying to get to."

Many people miss the days before smartphones, but not cell phones

It's not so much the cell phones as it is the mini computers that we carry around with us now. The camera and Google Maps are great, but social media and carrying 24/7 news and all of the information in the world around with us is a lot.

"I'm not too nostalgic for a time before cell-phones, but I am nostalgic for the time before smart-phones. From ~1990 to ~2009, cell-phones were just what the name implies: mobile phones. But once smart-phones came out and social media exploded in popularity, they started actually changing the way human beings interact and behave and even how they think, and none of these changes were for the better."

Many people would prefer flip phones to be the norm.Giphy GIF by Laff

"This is my take as well. I appreciated having a dumb cell phone in the 90s when I was a single woman when driving places alone late. I could call AAA from my car if my car broke down instead of walking to god knows where to find a pay phone to call. Smart phones + social media though have had a lot of downsides."

"This is such an important distinction. My first reaction reading the original post was all the stories of girls who walked home alone, couldn’t call for a safe ride and were never heard from again and all the times there was an accident and someone had to try to set off on foot to go get help. Cell phones are an amazing safety innovation. Smartphones are something different."

"I agree completely! I like very few things about smartphones... having Google Maps, but that's about it. I could have a flip phone and a Navman on my dash and never give a single fuck about "smart" phones ever again.

I hate what society and human interaction has become because of these things."

"Absolutely, there was a sweet spot when we had cell phones or gps (I used to get lost so much more) but before social media became so ubiquitous and employers expected you to be available 24/7. Miss those days!"

It truly is a mixed bag

One person's comment summed it all up quite perfectly:

"It's a mixed bag.

On the one hand, back in those days I had a lot less 'noise' coming at me all day. The phone ringing, texts coming in, emails, my company's instant messaging platform... none of those existed. Life was much quieter.

Smart phones have made our lives both easier and more complex.Giphy GIF by Schitt's Creek

On the other hand, tasks that are simple and quick now were much harder then. The top one that comes to mind was just getting around a place I didn't know well. Having to pull out a map, try to figure out where I even was let alone where I was going, stopping to ask strangers for directions, driving to a phone booth so I could look up the address of a business in the Yellow Pages. Not knowing what restaurants are worth visiting in a new town and just having to wing it. It was a headache.

Sometimes I needed to get a hold of someone and just couldn't. Call, leave a voicemail, wait for a call back, hope I'm home and available to answer the phone when the return call happened.

Banking required going to the bank. Paying bills required writing a bunch of checks by hand, stamping envelopes, and going to the mailbox.

That said, even though these tasks are way easier and faster now, I don't have any more free time. I have less. Because we're expected to just cram more in our day."

Good or bad, better or worse, we live in a world where phones are so interwoven into our lives, using them wisely and judiciously is the most important thing.