“691328, who’s speaking please?” was how we had to answer the white phone. Like a secretary.
The white phone was diverted from Dad’s dental practice next door to our home after hours. We were told to keep it ‘business-like’. It was never questioned, until my mates would see or hear me and laugh.
Eventually, in an exciting moment of societal growth, a new digit was inserted in front of many local Dublin phone numbers, so they became 7 digit numbers instead of 6 digit numbers.
Most numbers previously beginning with 6 or 8 became 26 and 28.
The telco Gods really wanted to segregate the households of Dublin 6 and 14 however, whose numbers began with 9 but were given different prefix digits to get used to. 97 numbers from Dublin 6 became 497 and 98 numbers fr from Dublin 14 became 298.
“2691328, who’s speaking please?” – that was the pace of change we had to contend with back then!
The grey phone was our home phone. It arrived after the other one, a clear sign of economic prosperity in the Walshe household!
“2698033, who’s speaking please?”
This confused me. How come I had to be business-like when answering our home phone?
“If you get casual with this one, you’ll drop the ball with the other one” I was told.
I didn’t argue. I was good at doing what I was told then. Not sure when that all unravelled.
Isn’t it amazing to think of how much our relationship with the phone has changed in that time?
I was at a presentation the other day. We were asked the question “How would you explain Social Media to someone in 1984?”
Basically, you couldn’t. It wouldn’t make any sense.
Your more conservative friends might have sought to commit you to psychiatric care. Your more whacky friends would have begged you to share whatever it was you were smoking.
“So you use this glass box that you keep in your pocket. It responds to your thumbs, fingers and voice. It’s kind of like a camera, and a phone, but also a yellow-pages and library…oh yeah, and a tv. Kind of hard to explain….”
“Okayyyyy……”
“Anyway, social media is basically where you update your friends with photos and messages, or sometimes people who don’t know you at all, about what you like, what you’re doing, where you are or who you’re with.”
“Why the f#ck would I want to do that?”
That would have been the most alien concept of all. No one ever shared their business. For years and years of internet use, people didn’t even use their names. And then photos? No chance!
And then it all changed. And it has kept changing. And it will keep changing.
The other day I got to demo some new tech toys in a client’s office.
- I wore (perfectly comfortable) sunglasses that had a camera, mic, earpiece and AI functionality. Will we be using phones for much longer?
- I went to a boxing class, in VR, but could still see the people around me in real life. This mixed-reality was incredible. There I was playing a 3-D boxing game, adjusting my feet boxing different moving targets, avoiding being hit myself…yet still able to see the people I was there with in reality too.
- Then I went to a meeting – a virtual meeting place where I sat ‘beside’ the avatar versions of real people dispersed internationally. However, within the workroom, we could share our actual laptop screens, and have a video conference with actual people too. So those without the headset and hardware could join in on their 2D screen at home if they wanted to.
I’m not sure how this will all unfold. I’m no futurist. It’s a lot to take in.
A lot more than a 6-digit phone number changing to a 7-digit number.
People will still be people. For now at least!