THE PHONE IN THIS IMAGE IS ON THE WALL IN MY LAUNDRY ROOM.

How would you like to carry this thing around in your pocket. You might need a bigger pocket, not to mention you will only be able to make or accept phone calls on it. It isn’t multi-purposed like the phones of today. Today you have a million choices for various apps to add to your phone. You can set dates on a calendar to remind you of appointments. You can choose an app that shows you what kind of plants you have growing in your garden and what is simply a weed. You can discover the value of some vintage items you have around your house. Those are great conveniences, but they also use up some of your valuable time.

You can do so much on the newfangled phones of today, but there are some downsides to this instrument of communication. If you don’t want to communicate with someone, you don’t have to answer their emails. You can spend hours looking at the screen which also eats up time you could be spending outdoors, finishing a project, or simply enjoying the things that make you look beyond photos. You can fall into some dark rabbit holes. Many sites are available for things that tempt, that rouse your desires, that reveal more than you want to see. For the most part these phones can be a great convenience in researching something, but they can also stack up millions of minutes of screen time.

So, I’ve tried to include some of the good, bad and ugly of these devices. Did you realize the old-fashioned phone in my photo had a downside or two of its own? For one thing, if you lived in a rural area, you most likely had a party line, which included one or more other customers in your same location. You would know the call was for you, depending on the number of rings. If you picked up the phone when it was ringing for someone else, you would be privy to their conversation. A lot of false information would be gathered from those overheard conversations and could easily become fodder for gossip. You had to crank the phone to get the attention of the switchboard operator. It too, took a lot of valuable time away from the consumer. The good side of this device was mainly based on emergency situations or just having a means to communicate with friends and neighbors.

The phone has gone through a lot of changes even in my 83 years of living. Change for the better? I’m all for progress, but nothing beats sitting at a table and talking with someone face to face. You can read a person’s body language when you can see them. Even on FaceTime, each participant is on their best behavior, so you don’t really see what they’re thinking.

It makes me wonder what people did before the invention of the telephone. They wrote things down in journals. They read incessantly. They played board games. They went outside and enjoyed the peace and quiet of a lovely day. They had meals together as a family. They talked to one another. The visited museums, libraries, historical sites, entertainment venues. They talked about those trips when they got home. They also created some wonderful memories through them.

I am not complaining about the phones of today. In fact, they are very helpful to the senior community. We can call if we have an emergency. We can text to get an immediate response. We can write a blog. We can send emails when our handwriting has grown indecipherable. We can keep in close touch with those who live a long way from us. I kind of miss the old party lines, not because I enjoyed spreading gossip, but because a lot of interesting stories were added to my collection of future stories.

“The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.”

Edward R. Murrow

Pardon me now as I try to write a ten page text message. It’s hard not to when you’re a writer.