Recently, I saw a YouTube video of two 17 year old boys trying to figure out how to use a rotary telephone. I had never thought about how different smart phones of today are from dial phones of yesteryear until I saw the video below. And I had never really thought about how many logical ways you can try to dial a phone number with a rotary phone.
Watch the video below of the young men's attempts and see what you think.
After seeing this, I wondered if my kids knew how to use a rotary phone. Theo said that he had never used one before but knew how to use them from seeing them in movies and on TV. Wally said the same thing, but actually realized he didn't after watching the video.
The whole thing was very amusing to me and thought that it just must be the younger generation with the lack of knowledge. That was until I saw the sign below in the waiting room of an office.
I guess those boys weren't the only ones who didn't know that you needed to keep the receiver up to make a phone call on older phones. :) Do you still use a dial phone? Do your kids know how to use one?
I have seen that video before. They remind me of myself trying to use a cell phone! I still don't know how to use half the features on my cell! She had a toy rotary phone, as a child, so, I am going to presume she knows how to use a rotary phone. :)
ReplyDeleteGood analogy about us using a cell phone. :)
DeleteToo funny. BTW, the bottom picture isn't showing up for me. I took my kids to a museum a few years ago where they could do a hands-on experience for older technology. The most fun to watch was the rotary phone and the manual typewriter. They had a lot of fun with the typewriter, and then I realized we had gotten rid of my parent's old manual. I could have kicked myself--it would have been smart to keep it to let the younger generations experience first-hand.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what's going on with the picture except I loaded that picture from Google Photos instead of my hard drive. It didn't show up in the middle of the day for me either, but seems to be visible now. The picture shows a push button phone with a regular receiver in a waiting room. There is a sign by it that says, "Please lift handset."
DeleteMy kids played with my parents' old manual typewriter for a while, but we finally got rid of it. We gave it to the local high school theater prop department.
That's hilarious! I need to test my kids. My oldest, when she was little, used to squeeze every teddy bear's paw, because she thought they all talked or played music.
ReplyDeleteGlad to have found you through the A to Z Challenge.
The finish line, Coach-daddy, is in sight for the A-Z challenge. Yay!
DeleteYour daughter must have been disappointed a lot when not all teddy bears played music or talked when their paw was squeezed.
I remember the dial phones. We had one, in our house growing up, along with a party line. No privacy or lengthy calls with friends then. Ha! I was a switch board operator for awhile as a job in high school. Nobody normal now would have a clue what that even means.
ReplyDeleteDial up was slow to come to our area so I remember when we actually had to tell the operator our number. And while I didn't have a party line, my grandmother did as well as several friends. You had to be careful what you said on those. I don't think my grandmother listened to others, but I'm pretty sure that her neighbors did.
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