I Still Like Paper #sorrynotsorry

Kathryn Bernhardt
Sep 3, 2018 · 3 min read

I’m not a tech person. There I said it.

And for some reason it seems like a big secret. I’m not revealing that I still sleep with a stuffed animal or that I don’t like chocolate, but it feels like if I told someone that I was a Millennial that only sort-of knew what she was doing with the technology at her fingertips, someone would dramatically gasp.

Now, I’m not going to say that I don’t have Instagram and Snapchat, because I do, and my fingers are now programmed to click on them at least several times a day. And of course I help the rest of my family with all of their tech issues. I can Google like nobody’s business.

But, I would rather have a book in my hands than a tablet, I like to handwrite my notes, and my calendar app is empty — I choose to use a real planner. I’m not up on all of the current memes and I don’t know most Vine references. My life source doesn’t slowly deplete like the battery icon on your screen if I don’t have my phone for a couple of hours. It’s been tried and tested. Shocking, I know.

But before you start believing that I live in the Stone Age, I have another secret possibly more shocking than the last.

I didn’t get a phone until I was in 8th grade, and I didn’t have any kind of social media until I was a sophomore in high school. Cue the raised eyebrows and dropped jaws.

I still played games on the computer and used the Internet with my friends when we were in elementary school. My Webkinz house was pimped out and I beat every level of Marble Blast Gold at least three times over, but when we entered middle school and people started getting phones, I just didn’t. I kept reading my old school books and playing sports, and I was fine. Most of my friends had phones and started making Facebook profiles too, but I didn’t really feel left out.

When I finally got my first phone, my friends affectionately named it the Block Phone because it was essentially a block with buttons. It didn’t flip or snap or do anything except take five minutes to send a simple text, but I was happy with it.

I only had a year with the Block Phone until I got upgraded to an iPhone and it was a whole new world. I was part of the It crew with a fancy smart phone that could download any app I wanted and send texts in a tenth of the time. I still didn’t have a Facebook or the new app, Instagram, that everyone was getting, and I still didn’t care.

Sophomore year I finally caved and made a Facebook profile, and it only took another year before I gradually downloaded Instagram and finally made a Snapchat my senior year.

So there I was, a high school senior, but basically a baby in the social media world. I had a measly couple hundred followers compared to others who had been developing their followings for years, and I was still trying to figure out which filter was most flattering.

But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I’m glad that my entire childhood and young adult life wasn’t consumed by technology. I was active and found my passions, without which I’d have no idea what to do with my life today.

I still don’t use Twitter and I love Pinterest like a middle aged soccer mom, but I’m a fulfilled college girl who knows how to balance a phone in one hand and a real life in the other.

P.S. I plan to raise my kids the same way. Feel free to leave your judgmental looks and parenting tips at the door. They’ll love their block phones and be able to talk in more than abbreviations.

TTYL,

Kathryn