How did we live before iPhones and Social Media?

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I cannot help but feel I am addicted to my iPhone. Addicted to YouTube. Addicted to internet forums. Not really addicted to anything else on the internet because there's not much else I do on the internet.

I have resisted the largest social media time criminals - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etcetera. I might have dabbled but didn't stay long.

I remember trying to resist an iPhone many years ago. I wanted a phone that was just a phone and could survive being run over by a tank. But I was swayed by work colleagues. I've probably had an iPhone since 2010. Now I even have an iPhone for work, so I couldn't have escaped iPhones even if I'd wanted to.

But, maybe I can escape the unhealthy lure of the iPhone!? Imagine a time before iPhones. A time where our mobile phones were just for making calls (and perhaps the odd text message.) Or, go back even further, imagine a time when I didn't have any phone!

Can I ignore the existence of my phone, and just treat it as a phone - and a clock, a timer, an alarm, a SatNav, a note holder, a secure authenticator and the other useful functions it serves 😆!?

Stop looking at YouTube, stop looking at forums, and stop wasting your time on unproductive stuff. Imagine a time before you know they existed. YouTube hasn't been around forever, neither will the forums you've been on.

  • Rules for work days:
    1. YouTube does not exist *
    2. Internet forums do not exist (until after 1900)
    3. Your phone is only capable of calls and essential functions **
    4. Any unhealthy internet thing has not been invented!
*Except for educational or work use
** Except for emergencies or work use

Before my internet addiction, I used to love learning and working / working on learning. Doing labs to improve my technical knowledge and expertise, writing blog posts and straight-to-the-point how-to articles, to help others and myself. What happened to that!? That was productive, good, fun, rewarding and helpful. Now all I do is waste time looking at sh!t on YouTube and waste far more time than I should on internet forums (where you can be banned in an instant, or the site might simply close down meaning a lot of that time invested was wasted.)

What if the internet had never been invented?