Technology
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
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This seems like a dumb tiktok trend or some shit. It's hard to get by in this world without a cellphone
But I just wish anyone would still want to talk on the phone. I love chatting with friends for an hour or so on the phone but everyone hates it now. Quick random texts just feel so much less personal. Ah well
It's not clear these people wouldn't have a cellphone as well.
I still want to talk on the phone and I probably wouldn’t if it was like corded landline days when you were constrained to wherever the cord would reach. Cordless was freeing, and I’ll never go back!
I look back fondly on the moments of “where is the phone?!” Because someone took it to their room to have a private conversation but then left it there on accident.
Still happens I guess, but where everyone has their own phone (not one shared for the whole family) it’s less frantic and thus less hilarious to me.
There were cordless landlines for years. So you could go usually anywhere in the house or even into the yard a ways. But I can't think why anyone would want to use something like that when you have cell phones. Large, comfy form factor I suppose.
I bet there are dozens of people doing this.
Think about it - corded phones died because we needed to walk around and talk. I mean, you all remember how ridiculously long some of those cords could get so that people could do light chores. Then wireless landlines became a thing (and I swear the audio quality seemed to drop) and as cellphones became more predominant they were almost phased out entirely - certainly phased out of necessity.
But now two decades or so later we're just in one spot all the time again. If we're not at work we're at home and if we're not cooking or cleaning we're probably just in one spot (likely at the computer or the TV). So it makes sense to me, although I do wonder how much of this is more of a micro trend than Gen Z bringing back landlines lol.
Sometimes I wonder if some companies or groups are paying to publish "news" about genz using this or that, as a way to promote their stuff. It looks to me as a good and cheap tactic, since some younger people would look into the "trend", trying not to miss it, while some older people would look into it trying to stay "cool" and not look out of fashion.
But then I think again, and it looks like too much of a conspiracy theory. Why does my brain do that?
They are fun to slam down when you want to hang up on someone
I miss flip phones for similar reasons. I loved flicking them open and snapping them shut.
My last phone before getting a smart phone as a Motorola Razr, and man that one was so satisfying.
The only right way to slam down the phone requires an old phone with actual bells for the ringer. You know you did it right then the bells ding at you.
I had one of those see through phones back in the day. Loved that thing. But turns out the see through plastic isn't as strong as the older style. Smashed it down too hard one day and the whole thing was destroyed.
bundled in our internet is a landline....so we found a vintage rotary phone and hooked it up. We can receive but not call out. It's awesome.
If you're interested, these things will convert rotary pulses to tones and allow your old phone to interface with the phone system (and voip systems too)
Edit: nvm, someone beat me to it
not a recommendation (I have not used any pulse to tone converters), but this may help you out.
I love rotary phones lol. They're so fun to play around with.
Mine can even still call out, but the router/modem doesn't supply enough voltage (or current, not sure) so you really have to scream to be heard and only hear a faint whisper.
Not as strange or pointless as it might seem at first glance, I'm reminded of this article from years ago comparing the experience of a modern phone with the old handsets: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/why-people-hate-making-phone-calls/401114/
What does Gen Z suffer from even more than the rest of us? Loneliness, isolation. So using a phone that is designed with physical comfort foremost is a way of reclaiming a sense of social connection and physical touch ("reach out and touch someone"), even when distances between callers are great. And touching the cord, again, a way of feeling the connection with the other person, which in a world of wireless devices isn't possible -- there's nothing there but empty space. It's not just about twirling the cord.
This isn't to suggest there are no benefits to smartphones, and others here suggest earbuds to improve call quality and ergonomics. But the fact is modern smartphones are designed to do many things OK-ish in compromise, but nothing so well as the other devices they replace (phones, TVs, calculators - remember those?, flashlights, keyboards, etc etc.)
Awesome grounded explanation!
And phones don't indeed replace many other devices. Like camaras too, for example. If you want to do really good photography, you actually need different kinds of lenses. Although lenses exist for smartphones, they are not that widespread, and using a camara is therefore still important.
Also a big point is the ergonomics of it. Handling a camara is much easier for long and complex photography sessions. Same with having a calculator at hand. It's easier to punch numbers in a physical keyboard. Or to handle a flashlight, or using a real keyboard to write a document. The list goes on and on and on.
Oh yes, my phone is nearly impossible to use as a camera, between the inherently awkward shape, the case, and the long processing delay. Does it work? Yes. But it's not much fun. I love the ergonomic grip(s) of my DSLR and how every button and dial is in a natural position.
That's another thing we miss, plain old tactile feedback of buttons, dials, sliders, switches.
About buttons, it's also good they're going back on car interior design. Driving without physical buttons is just dangerous.
I don't get why millennials and older generations mock zoomers for these trends. What's wrong with enjoying old technology and childhood nostalgia? People are so needlessly petty when it comes to younger generations and their interests.
Considering that every single generation has nostalgia its baffling to me this is even news
Elder Millennial here, I hate the whole mocking of generations and hoped ours wouldn't do it as much, but I'm still seeing people of my generation doing so. We did stuff others might call dumb too, or just stuff for the hell of it.
Yeah it's particularly weird from millennials because it wasn't that long ago our "avocado toast" generation was absolutely copping it from boomers.
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Article and trend aside, I actually do miss landlines... I have to do the "boomer" thing of talking on speaker phone with my phone out in front of me because no matter what I do putting my flat cellphone up to my ear is just impossible to hear and exceedingly uncomfortable. I miss the ergonomics of a real phone.
Have you considered Bluetooth (or wired) earbuds? I can't stand phone calls without them. Speakerphone makes me self-conscious in public and I can't help but get shouty, and I have the same problem as you do with face-smush mode. But my Bluetooth earbuds are exactly how I want my phone call experience to be.
Okay but what do I do if I'm not wearing my buds when I receive a surprise call?
My wife insists on us having a landline. She doesn’t know she’s running a SIP phone over the internet connected to a SIP trunk that has a local area number. She’s happy. I get to kill our landline.
Can we possibly have a better source for this "story". Because that one's not reliable.
Although in reality it's not really a story is it
I don't miss landlines. Can't take the friggin landline with you wherever you go. (Affordable) Cell phones were the game changer.
A few years ago when I was working from home and on the phone all day, I much preferred my landline. My cell service was decent, but the landline was better. No dropped calls, no static or garbled audio (from my side anyways), and no latency causing me to talk over other callers. I always hated getting on calls when I was remote from my home office.
I feel like over the last 20 years landlines become this thing you still had from the past in which you only got spam calls. Like, you're home, and suddenly you hear a strange noise, you realize it's the landline ringing. You forgot about it. It's that thing sitting on some shelves with a cord. You pick it up, and you hear something about your car's extended warrenty.
One thing people forget is long distance fees. Cell phones basically did away with long distance fees, and we're better for that. However, landlines have some notable benefits:
- self-powered, you could call in a power outage
- high fidelity, yeah it was bandpass filtered, but everything in that filter made it through
- freedom of usage, it was hard-fought but you could plug anything into your phone line, from more phones to answering machines to computer modems. There was a whole market around "dumb shit you plugged into your phone line" products
We're still way better overall with cell phones, but something was lost to get them.
Man there's something about talking on a cell phone that makes me feel like I have to yell, and thus, hate talking on them.
As I remember land lines, they never felt that way.
Might last a day or few if it's even true. Just like how they were all ditching smartphones for Nokias recently.
My landline have been turned off completely.
I live in an apartment building that was constructed in '22 and a landline wasn't even an option anymore, it's all just gigabit ethernet.
The optimal phone is both corded and wireless: it has a receiver corded to a base piece with a traditional dial, but the base piece is wireless.