Mary Owen
Mary Owen
Nov 8 · 5 min read

15 Simple Pleasures Tech Has Made Us Forget

Photo by Nicolás Olivares on Unsplash

See if this sounds familiar: You’re not sure where your U.S. road atlas is or if you even own one. It’s been so long since you licked a stamp, you’ve forgotten what it tastes like. Remember when “ I can’t get to the phone right now, please leave a message.” was because you weren’t home and people did have to leave a message and wait for a return phone call. No texts, no video calls, no social media. Back when you had to call or visit to see how a loved one was doing.
It’s hard to believe how much our devices have transformed the way we live. Tasks and tools that once seemed routine now seem out-of-date, and in a few short years. Example: Who would post an ad on the personals page of a local newspaper?

Here are some of those rituals that are no longer necessary in high-tech households. Teenagers may shrug, but if you’re 20 years or older, you’ll smile with nostalgia.

1. Memorize a phone number
How many phone numbers do you know by heart?
Pop quiz: How many phone numbers do you know by heart? Remember the scramble for a working pen and something to write on that you hopefully wouldn’t lose?

2. Park your used car on the street with a sign that says it’s for sale
Selling your car on your own is a pretty risky business. True, you stand to profit more, because you’ll avoid a dealership’s fees.
Craigslist started up more than 20 years ago, and it’s still going strong. Now there’s a Facebook market!

3. Figure out the math in your head
When was the last time you did some math in your head?
Remember having to check your homework by redoing the problem to make sure you were correct? It’s hard to tell if anyone still knows how to work a problem backward to come up with the same answer. This is a skill that will have to be retaught if we ever lose access to the computers that do the math for us.

4. Telling time by hands on a clock
Do we even look at the hands-on a clock to tell time anymore?
Like cursive writing, analog clocks are teetering on extinction. Few people with smartphones bother with watches anymore. With digital clocks on our computers and hardware, those 12-numeral timepieces may become pure novelties. Even your trusted alarm clock has received a tech makeover.

5. Make photo albums
Purists still love their dark rooms, because chemicals and photo paper can be so rewarding for the patient photographer. But few people pine for the days of dropping off rolls of film at a one-hour photoshop. Instead of pasting five-by-seven snapshots into your faux-leather album, most people will prefer the ease of photo-sharing services like Flickr and Amazon Cloud.

6. Have a CD or record collection
Wasn’t it cool, back in the day, to walk into a shabby apartment and see those shelves of CDs? Wasn’t it a joy, to flip through boxes of vinyl records? Well, the mp3 generation has transferred all those songs to a digital index. Turntables have seen a resurgence in popularity, but it’s hard to imagine CDs making a comeback.

7. Make mixtapes
There was something so personal about a mixtape. We spent hours finding the right song, then lining up two cassettes to copy a song. Lovers cemented their relationships using a blank tape and a dozen favorite albums. Now, you can throw together a digital playlist in seconds.

8. Call a theater to get movie times
Calling the theater to get movie times or dropping in to look at the movie line up and standing around taking a vote with a friend on a movie and a time that allowed for a quick food run before it started is a thing of the past. The Internet has everything we need. In Google, you can often enter “movie times” and the search engine will list films based on your location.

9. Record your favorite programs on tape
Couldn’t be home for your favorite TV shows? Can you even find Blank VHS and a player to record them? When we could, we’d push a VHS tape into the machine and wait until the proper moment to press “record.” Or if we were lucky we could program the VHS player to start at a certain time. When TiVo emerged, it streamlined this process by making scheduled recordings even simpler. In the same vein, we rarely have to sit in front of the television, eagerly waiting for a “major network event.” Services like Hulu and YouTube convert a huge amount of national television into a digital format, and local news stations log most of their important segments onto their websites.

10. Run to the store for a last-minute gift
You forgot a Mother’s Day gift! Should you change your whole schedule so you can rush to the store and pick something out? If you have Amazon Prime and live in an Amazon hub, there’s no need. You can order same-day delivery and have that gift curried to your front door. It’s one of the many benefits you probably didn’t know Amazon offers.

11. Cut things out of the newspaper
Many grandparents still love to buy newspapers, and when they find an article they like, they snip it out, put it in an envelope, and send that little slip of newsprint to a relative. “Thought you might find this interesting!” reads an accompanying note. But most of us don’t waste our time. Nearly every article in every major newspaper is archived online and can be instantly shared by email, social media, and even text messages.

12. Send a handwritten letter
Handwritten letters are more personal than a text or email.
Don’t get me wrong: It’s still wonderful to receive a postcard from faraway places. You might say that email, texting and Skype conversations have made handwritten letters even more special. But no one is forced to transcribe their thoughts by hand and drop those letters in a mailbox.

13. Looking up the spelling of words in the dictionary
Spellcheck is nearly as old as word processors, and many of us have grown up expecting Microsoft Word to underline our mistakes in red squiggles. But autocorrect takes this concept a step further, guessing what we intended to write and correcting our mistakes. This can be handy for clumsy thumbs, but it can be embarrassing when autocorrect guesses wrong.

14. Use a phone booth
Phone booths in today’s digital world are now a thing of the past. When is the last time you saw one on the corner?
Phone booths are so rare nowadays that you’d probably have an easier time buying and activating a cheap cellphone. The last holdout maybe your local airport, but even international travelers can nab a SIM card the moment they step off the plane.

15. Carry enough change to make a phone call
I remember my dad telling me, “Always carry a quarter because you never know when you’ll need it.” In a world of debit cards and Apple Pay, shoppers rarely have to carry cash anymore. What happens when your phone is dead, there’s no one around and all you have is a phone booth? Luckily, most public phones in the U.S. are outfitted with credit card strips.

Mary Owen

Written by

Interests in Health, Love, Life, Spirituality, and Advice. Currently working on becoming the writer I want to be (And others want to read).

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