You Know You Are Old When

[CalG]

Black lights in a windowless storeroom....

 

[Oaktree]

Everybody except me. I leave the darned thing in the truck. In 8 months I'll be leaving it at home.

Me too. All I have is a cheapie "burner" flip phone, and that stays in a drawer 99% of the time. Maybe it's just my age (75), but I have no need or interested in being "connected" 24/7/365.

 

[BackRoad]

For 40 years I was paid to answer the ringer. Just like a trained dog...

Now it's only for my convenience. It plays music and podcasts to my hearing aids now...it's NOT for receiving phone calls!

 

[MossRoad]

Maybe we're just old fashioned, but just like the Waltons, we say goodnight to our kids every night, although now it's by text, as they live out of town. Kind of a constant normalcy in our lives. We usually talk to them once a week and catch up on things. I talk to my siblings fairly often, too. I read the news, check the weather, play a game of sudoku or some form of solitaire every night. Order things for the house, car parts, set up evenings out with our friends, etc... keep doctor appointments, take photos of interesting things we see when out on walks, identify species we don't know. Keep track of the mother in-law as she slows down. Tags in her purse and car so we can locate her in an emergency. She likes that as it's extra peace of mind for her. Wife and I have a shared grocery list. If either one updates it, they stay synched. All sorts of helpful and entertaining things can be done with a cell phone. Heck, I can even send the wife a smoochy face during the day and she smiles.

 

[masscity]

I'm 78 years old. I've had a cell phone since 1998, I also have a landline for backup. Landline is restricted, but free. I can't call out of the county, so my cell phone is my main phone.

I don't have any social apps on my cell phone, it's used as a phone. It's in my sweat pants or in my holster on my pants belt.

I don't make calls or get calls all day long. If I got too many calls I would put it on airplane mode or do not disturb.

To me it is a tool like a jackknife or a gun, nothing more.

 

[MossRoad]

I took mine for a half hour swim the other day. Completely forgot it was in my trunks pocket. No harm. In the past, with older phones, I'd have been out one cell phone.

 

[John0829]

If it were not for cell phones there would no phone service, landlines, last we had, had so much noise on them you could not understand the person on the other end and by the time ATT added "mileage" to the bill it was ridiculously high. We kept a landline until I retired from ATT since it was part of the employment package and cell service was about as good as the landline as in did not work. The only cell connection for a long, long time was in front of my garage, even the service techs pulled up in front of it to make calls.

 

[jyoutz]

I disconnected my landline a couple of years ago. Reception and service was declining and the phone company didn’t make upgrades to the lines. I’m assuming that the phone company is going to milk their old infrastructure until it no longer works, then go out of the landline business.

 

[scootr]

I dropped the landline service years ago. The iphone is blessing and a curse.
Love the instant access to things the WATCH fire app and messaging wife and friends.
Hate the scam texts and robo calls. I never answer a number I don't know. If they don't leave a message I block them.
Welcome to the information age. It's actually amazing.

 

[WinterDeere]

For 40 years I was paid to answer the ringer. Just like a trained dog...

Now it's only for my convenience. It plays music and podcasts to my hearing aids now...it's NOT for receiving phone calls!

My wife finds it amusing that I get severely irritated every time my phone rings. It's a podcast, audio book, and music player to me, the phone app is just an unfortunate add-in, from my perspective.