The other day I was starting my vacation by killing time at an airport. Of course with a cell phone. To do draft inside twitter X I came across an article Atlantic Ocean, gafapastil journalism bible, titled What were people doing before smartphones?.

The page had not yet loaded and I already perfectly remembering what I did before smartphones: call my first girlfriend from landline to landline – cell phones were expensive as transmitters and receivers – pray for her to answer me and finally stutter to her father have a nice day sir, will your daughter please continue?

memory trap

Except when the drum rhymes are stuck in my throat, misleading nostalgia. Our minds tend to sweeten yesterday, blurring what we’re not interested in remembering, and making us believe that all past times were better. Mistake.

It’s not just me: as the era of social networks and instant messaging gains momentum, it’s becoming more common to hear nostalgic comments against it, praising those who have the will to do without a smartphone or at least great apps.

In this deceptive nostalgia, I began to think that we live a little more freely, less dependently, less dependent on interactions, instant information, our own emotions. I virtual, short videos consumed in a hurricane and league fancy. I soon returned to the question at the beginning of that article: so what the hell did we do next?

Agree that boredom is fine. It forces us to reflect, to introspect, and perhaps to value the mundane more, not to distract ourselves from our deep thoughts by allowing them to dig a little deeper; but also an opportunity cost.

The cost of missing out on all the music discovered, great podcasts that teach us a lot, articles or discoveries that make us a little more aware game changer for our home life, like using baking soda and white vinegar to clean anything.

We would have missed most of them if it weren’t for the search for inertia to fill boring gaps. It’s also silly, bland, expendable content, but I guess there’s always a price to be paid.

We all have some weaknesses. If I didn’t have a smartphone, mine would be not being able to photograph or record my daily scenes, the thing I’ll miss the most one day, the moments when the house I grew up in belonged to someone else’s family, or when we sat down to dinner on Christmas Eve. Think about those who are no longer here.

If the smartphone, photo and video camera were not always at hand, there would certainly be many good moments from everyday life. but in the long run they could hide in something fragile: my memory. I prefer the cloud and the mother of all backups.

Without a smartphone, other vulnerabilities raged in the past more often than now: those who were late to an important event because they couldn’t figure out the route by road, or who learned too late to report the loss of a family. Goodbye for catching him on a trip. Much worse than being bored for a while.

The author of the article, Ian Bogost, finally concluded: maybe we are too distracted now but we were bored before. And it had far worse consequences than calling his 16-year-old daughter-in-law and answering you by her good-natured father, whose hand was the size of a pitcher and whose face looked like he was chewing a bee.

on Xataka | We went to the Apple Store at three o’clock on a Tuesday morning to find out who was shopping at the Apple Store at three o’clock on Tuesday morning..

Featured Image | Xataka with Midjourney.