Generation iPhone

On our drive home from school yesterday, Iver asked me if he could bring his  "phone" to school for sharing on Friday end-of-week party day (To be clear: my seven-year-old doesn't have his own "phone." We have a couple of old iPhones at home, one of which we use for its sound machine app at bedtime and for travel. It still is able to be used like a camera to take photos [not backed up anywhere] but the kids do not play on it at home or take it anywhere).  My response to him was "absolutely not." We had a discussion about how cell phones are for mature, older kids/teens and adults. He asked at what age he could have one. I told him that Kelvin and I would have to discuss this as he got older (my inclination [besides my preference, which would be never, because I think smartphones are evil and wish we could return to a world of flip-phones and without internet access or text-messaging (see 2021 blog rant here)] is high school but no earlier than middle school. One of my favorite evidence-based parenting experts, economist and mom Emily Oster, has weighed in, and says 12-ish).  I told him I got my first mobile phone around age 21 in medical school.  

Iver then went on to ask me how people called one another if we didn't carry around phones.

We talked about voicemails (we used Audix in college) and land lines with answering machines (we have cordless phone linked to our cable account but it only gets called by spammers and we never make outgoing calls on it, although we taught Iver to dial 9-1-1 if needed in an emergency). Believe it or not, we survived without instant access to one another or FaceTime!  

Speaking of "old phones," I then asked him if he new what a rotary phone was.

"Yeah," he replied. "One of those phones on the road." (Road-a-ry phone...)

Me: "You mean like a payphone?

Iver: "Yeah, like are found in the booths."

Me: "Oh, ha ha. That's another way we used to make phone calls. But a rotary phone is one when you have to dial/pull the numbers in a loop to call someone." (Here's a classic video of two teens trying to figure out a rotary phone).

Iver: "Well, how do you operate a pay phone?"

Me: "You had to drop in a quarter or some money and then dial your number. You had to have the number memorized or written down."

Iver: "Well, where does the money go?"

Me: "Into some sort of lockbox. Then it gets collected."

Iver: "How? Who gets to keep it?"

Me: "Hmm. I guess the phone company, or the city, I suppose."

SO many questions!

It's really amazing how much technology has changed in the last couple of decades. We've talked about how there didn't used to be "streaming" music or shows on demand, just the radio, VHS, and… cassette tapes (which I'm pretty sure he couldn't identify…as some of my favorite Mom podcasters would say, "OLDILOCKS ALERT!"). I am making it a mission to teach my children about the all of the tech of yesteryear and other devices of my youth (Here are some top tech devices for 80s kids). Just wait until they hear about floppy disks!