Crock’s Thoughts

Do you feel the weight of technology? More specifically, our phones—always within reach, always tethering us to the world.

It’s like a needy little pet goblin that lives in your pocket. It’s constantly buzzing and chirping for attention, begging you to feed it with swipes and taps, and if you ignore it for too long, it starts guilt-tripping you with those blinking notifications. Like a gremlin holding up a sign that says, “Love me or I’ll drain my battery in protest!”

It’s a sobering thought to realize that we’re the last generation to remember life before social media. A time when people weren’t glued to their screens, lost in a digital zombie trance. We knew a world where eye contact was the norm, conversations were uninterrupted, and moments weren’t measured in likes and shares. Plus no needy pocket goblins!

Before the rise of social media and cellphones, life moved at a different pace. It was slower, but in many ways, more personal. Communication wasn’t instant, nor was it broadcasted to the world with a single tap. Instead, connections were nurtured through in-person conversations, handwritten letters, and phone calls made from landlines with tangled cords. The drama-filled moments had more to do with family members demanding you stop hogging the phone line, and less about a misunderstanding in a text or politically charged social media post.

If you wanted to share news, you’d call a friend or meet at a bar for a beer. If you wanted to see vacation photos, you’d wait for someone to develop their film and flip through a physical photo album. There was an anticipation that made interactions more meaningful. No instant likes, no retweets, just genuine reactions and memories shared in real time.

Entertainment was experienced differently as well. Movies weren’t streamed but rented from a local video store, where choosing a film for the night was an event in itself. Music discovery happened through CDs, cassette tapes, and the radio. If you wanted to hear your favorite song, you’d either wait for it to play on a station or visit a record store. Who remembers patiently holding your fingers on the record button to catch your favorite song on the radio? Sometimes I’d get a finger cramp waiting so long! Lol!

For news, people relied on newspapers, television, and word of mouth. Information spreads slower than a snail through peanut butter! I mean, that’s slow! Kinda gross, too!

Perhaps most notably, people spent more time fully engaged in their surroundings. Meals weren’t interrupted by notifications. Public spaces were filled with conversation rather than the glow of screens. If you wanted to meet someone, you’d simply show up and hope they were home, or you’d set a time and place. There were no last-minute text updates.

While technology has brought convenience and efficiency, we’ve merely replaced our freed-up time with endless information, tasks, and mindless entertainment. We rarely giving our minds a chance to rest. The world grows louder, connections multiply, yet loneliness deepens as people retreat further into their digital bubbles.

Life before cellphones and social media wasn’t perfect—and maybe I’m guilty of romanticizing the past, filtering out the bad, and holding onto nostalgia—but there was a certain beauty in it. We were forced to experience the world as it was, to think without Google, and to see life without a digital filter. There was a quiet joy in boredom, a rare freedom in letting our minds wander without the constant urge to fill the silence with more noise.

I miss the old world. Like everyone else, I’ve embraced this digital revolution, but I do try to make a conscious effort to detox from our digital overlords. The old world may be gone—Pandora’s digital box can’t be sealed shut—but I’m trying to learn how to make technology work for me, rather than letting it control me. And for a tech geek like me, that’s no easy feat.

Where I can, I turn off my phone and reach for paper, a good pen, a walk, or simply watch the clouds drift by. Sometimes… I just want to be bored.