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How my phone changed my life

ardchoille

Android Expert
Mar 8, 2011
3,683
1,940
Seattle
I was born in 1964 and never heard of a cell phone until high school. And then cell phones came in a briefcase-sized pouch with an extruding antennae with the handset wired to the phone box. They were heavy and had limited range. Keep in mind that the internet, as we know it, didn't exist during my childhood.

Then:
* When I wanted to jot down a note I had to look for pencil and paper
* When I wanted to contact someone I had to go home and use the phone or walk to their house
* When I wanted to look up information I had to go to the public library and hope they had what I needed
* When I wanted to check my bank account balance I had to walk to the bank
* If I was lost I was screwed unless I had a paper map with me
* My hobby was assembling plastic model cars

Now:
* I can perform all of the above tasks on my phone regardless of my location
* Now my main hobbies are programming, theming and documentation

What a change, eh?

You young folks should count yourselves lucky :)
 
I love the way my phone changed my life also.

Though, there is something I noticed.

When I was in elementary school, I need to check my pockets (I have a pocket watch since my wrist is too big, and children's watches are not available yet), to check the time.

In highschool, I check my wristwatch to check the time.

Now, I check my pockets, to check the time on my phone.

Technology drawback, ey?
 
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Sometimes I pretend to be back in... say, high school, and wonder what I would think if someone handed me an Android phone. I think it would seem like a device from a sci movie, too good to be true.

For some perspective, my high school years were the early 90s. I was sporting a 14.4k baud modem and surfing BBS's. America Online was in its prime and Prodigy was on its way out. Music CDs were all the rage while VHS still dominated video. I knew about the "Internet" but didn't really know how to access it or where to go.

The idea of a cell phone as small as my Evo would have been unheard of. Given that the WWW was still in its infancy and broadband was unheard of, I would not have been able to appreciate the high download speeds. I thought 14.4k was a HUGE upgrade from my old 2400b baud modem from 1989. Later, my 28.8k would be considered as fast as I would ever need (to play Doom via BBS).

And who could have predicted that game console emulation would become so successful that I could play my old NES games on my phone??? Of course, before that happened, I was overjoyed in 1997 when I was able to do so on my PC with NESticle et. al.

And music available as a file? roughly 1MB a minute? How could I possibly fit all my music on my 120MB hard drive? How could a cell phone possibly have memory in the THOUSANDS of megabytes? It's smaller than my hard drive. Insane.

It was only a few years ago, 1991 I think, that Back to the Future 2 revealed the possibilities of video chat. So futuristic! And fax machines in the bathroom? (ok that one didn't pan out). But now my phone can do it.

Yeah, back then, a modern Android would be out of this world. Hard to imagine what we'll be sporting 20 years from now.

Tech is good stuff :)
 
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I love the way my phone changed my life also.

Though, there is something I noticed.

When I was in elementary school, I need to check my pockets (I have a pocket watch since my wrist is too big, and children's watches are not available yet), to check the time.

In highschool, I check my wristwatch to check the time.

Now, I check my pockets, to check the time on my phone.

Technology drawback, ey?
Yeah, I do the same thing now. I've never worn a wristwatch.
 
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When I was a kid,

Then:
*You need to have a film camera to take pictures and an expensive video camera for video.
*You need to go to the movie theater to watch the current movies and to a video store if you want to watch movies at home. You need a portable DVD player if you want to watch it anywhere else.
*You need to go somewhere? You need to visit that place.
*You need to call someone? Call them at home with the landline, and if they are not there, you need to write a message for the one who answered (no voice mails then). If you are outside, you need to call them with a payphone, but you need a card or coins.
*Unless you have Caller ID, you will never know who is the person who is trying (or tried) to reach you. You will never know how many missed calls you got.
*You need to play music for your school dance? You need to bring your big-ass radio with CD player + all the CDs you need.
*If you want to bring your books to read outside, you need a bookbag.
*You need to bring your Gameboy, if you want to play games outside.
*If you want to use the net, you have to find an internet cafe outside, or use your bulky desktop computer with dial up at home.

Now:
*Your phone has a camera and video recorder that is better than most digicams, some even in HD.
*You can download movies into your phone and watch it anywhere.
*Everything is online.
*You just need to call them on your mobile. If they don't answer leave a voice mail of text.
*Every info about the caller and missed calls is available.
*You just need to bring your phone and a stereo dock.
*All the ebooks you need are stored into your phone.
*You can play games on your phone, even nintendo ones.
*Your phone is better, faster, and have more memory than your desktop computer, which you can bring anywhere.


The biggest change is how you communicate with others.

When I was a kid, unless you have them as your neighbor, you only get to see your friends in school. You need to call them at their landline to plan any activities. You need to be at that place at the exact same time because you cannot change plans at the last minute.

You need to write letters or expensive out of country calls to keep in contact with your family abroad.


Now everyone is one text and call away.
 
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My dad was in sales. He was one of the early adopters of the briefcase-phones in the 80's. Told me when i was older that he and my mom had a huge fight over it (imagine paying $3k for a phone now, and still paying out the arse for minutes). Apparently he won by breaking down how much time he spent at pay-phones on the side of the road, plugging quarters in. I think we got new furniture shortly after, too. :D

When I played sports during high-school, if I couldn't get a ride I had to call home. Keeping up with change was a pita. Remember collect calls? Those were so expensive that I eventually worked out a plan where i would call collect and my mom would decline the charges... but that was the signal that I needed a ride. So I guess you could say I was a pioneer of free SMS -- short message service :)
 
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My dad was in sales. He was one of the early adopters of the briefcase-phones in the 80's. Told me when i was older that he and my mom had a huge fight over it (imagine paying $3k for a phone now, and still paying out the arse for minutes). Apparently he won by breaking down how much time he spent at pay-phones on the side of the road, plugging quarters in. I think we got new furniture shortly after, too. :D

When I played sports during high-school, if I couldn't get a ride I had to call home. Keeping up with change was a pita. Remember collect calls? Those were so expensive that I eventually worked out a plan where i would call collect and my mom would decline the charges... but that was the signal that I needed a ride. So I guess you could say I was a pioneer of free SMS -- short message service :)

we kind of did the same, my mom went to a community college a while back. we had caller id, and she would call us with a pay phone(still used money) but we sall that it was that pay phone so we knew not to answer so she got her money back
 
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I loved the technology when i was a kid, you used to appreciate what you had. Like to load a game on anything was slow and sometimes a hassle that once you got something working you stuck with it and played it to the end, now you can download an emulator of whatever console it was in seconds along with tonnes of roms and you give each game about 2 seconds to entertain you, if it doesnt you move onto another. Same with alot of apps on phones now, i can spend hours downloading heaps of apps from the market and delete most of them cause i tried them for 2 seconds and declared it shit, whereas before you'd cherish any little extras you could get your hands on. Must be tough for developers these days who spend weeks developing something only to have some fat stranger say 'took 0.5 milliseconds to long to open, uninstalled.
 
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20 Years from now; Star trek becomes a reality. Cell phones are obsolete as we all have implants in our heads :p

On a real note, I could see some sort of implantation that makes a holographic design to your retina, displaying whatever you need to, where others cannot see. I could see this happening in about 25-30 years with our current breakthrough in technology in the past 30 years. Already were starting to look at holographic projection video display for meetings, and other various things. (this was displayed at a technological conference a few years ago, where a woman was standing in one location, and a holographic projection was projected on the other side of the world using current technology)

Were advancing quickly, but the real question is, will our technology kill us? This is where i wish i had the Delorean from Back to the Future!
 
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I'd love to see some extreme advances in green technology. Like the ultimate cheap green no-emission fuel, a way to mass-produce ozone and patch the holes and weak spots, greenery on top of every city rooftop. It is sad to watch our planet die. The poor polar bears are probably like wtf, where is all the ice going?
 
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I love it all but there is a downside, how many people can no longer do simple maths because of calculators. Who needs to spell when you have a spell checker. What is the future of the map, how many are left that can use them. In the UK we get constant stories of drivers following their sat navs to the letter rather than their eyes and common sense and getting into trouble.
 
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In highschool, I check my wristwatch to check the time.

Now, I check my pockets, to check the time on my phone.

Technology drawback, ey?

Actually, at least in NYC, wristwatches are fashionable again > Watches Are Rediscovered by the Cellphone Generation - NYTimes.com. I need to find and repair my old Kenneth Cole watch so I can join the cool kids.

I have noted this change as well. I am just old enough to know the original internet (barely) and the burgeoning world wide web, 2400 baud modems, etc. (I think my family went all the way up the scale: 2400 > 4800 > 9600 > 14.4k, etc). Now I see kids who are playing with their parents' phone (or, god forbid, it's their's already) and I think wow, they are growing up in a world where this is completely normal. This is fascinating to me.

Anyway, I'm back on the Android wagon after being smartphone-less since I sold my Eris sometime last summer. It's nice to have these things again, especially in NYC. If only the MTA would get their $h!+ together and produce better real time data. DC's metro/bus apps are way better :-(

- sps
 
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If Gene Roddenberry had lived, he'd be stunned and maybe thrilled to see what phones can be now. While maybe not tricorders, they sure can do everything else that a Starfleet officer might need-communication, information retrieval, etc, etc.
Yeah, I still think that Mr. Roddenberry had premonitions. Don't our current tablets remind you of the PADD? And the way android adoption has exploded it looks like it might become something like the LCARS system.
 
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When I was a kid the most out of site thing I had ever witnessed was regular Nintendo.. then when I was in high school the more size friendly bag phone hit the market and that was so amazing how you could be in your car and get a phone call!!!! Then came the handheld phones that was still way bigger then any house phone now days ...

I would have never thought there would be a computer that could fit in your pocket and like others have said... it also being a camera/camcorder ... tv... radio... pretty much these days there is a app to turn it into what ever gadget you want it to be... I'm really excited to see what the future holds... but I don't think I could stand any of that planting something in my eye stuff... EEEKKKKK!!!!!
 
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its done at birth.. you no say in it...
total communcation is implanted into you eye at a direct link to the brain.

it starts teaching you .. after 6 months....
by time you are 6 yrs old.. college class starts....
by time you are 8 yrs old.. career development is trained.
you are finish education by 10 yrs old.

but are allowed to enjoy your youth and experience life till 20... at which time you are setup to start your task at advancing the human race.
 
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My first computer had a turbo button that kicked the CPU up from like 10 Mhz to 18Mhz or something. There was a little LED that toggled between the two values.

The first time I saw a cable modem in action, my jaw hit the floor.

I remember saving money for months to double my RAM from 8Mb to 16Mb. I'll never forget...it cost $8 per Mb. $72 for an extra 8Mb stick.

My first word processing program - I think it was called First Choice - had like 5 floppy disks (the ones that were actually floppy). If you wanted to bold some text, or save your file, or open a new file...time to stop and insert a different one of the five floppies. It had a rudimentary database program included, too. I spent countless hours building a completely worthless database of my baseball cards. Of course, you first had to load DOS with a small stack of floppies before you could start First Choice...there was no hard drive.

Now my 5- and 3-year-old girls pick up my cell phone, play learning games, take pictures and text them to their grandparents, and turn on Pandora with virtually no instruction from me and the wife. Smartphones are as common to them as a ham sandwich.

I just can't imagine what they'll see their grandchildren do. The possibilities are endless and completely unknown.

The pessimist in me worries that the human memory will suffer, long-term.

As a point of reference to the above, I am 35.
 
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its done at birth.. you no say in it...
total communcation is implanted into you eye at a direct link to the brain.

it starts teaching you .. after 6 months....
by time you are 6 yrs old.. college class starts....
by time you are 8 yrs old.. career development is trained.
you are finish education by 10 yrs old.

but are allowed to enjoy your youth and experience life till 20... at which time you are setup to start your task at advancing the human race.

lol what a way to sell the technology, first it's a compulsory procedure at birth, at which point I'm now a component of the system. It spends my childhood honing my skills in some career path (probably pre-assigned by the sounds). Once I reach my later childhood/teen phase I'm rewarded with 10 years of fun, after which it kicks back in to make me the system's bitch again.

Could this technology also be used for oh say, socializing with my friends or enabling me bring my imagination and creativity to life or simply entertain myself with games, movies and music. Or is it just hellbent on making sure I advance the human race in some way, screw my life as long as the next person has something to kick off where I ended.
 
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