The thing with technology is that it is constantly evolving and changing. Kids today wouldn’t recognise an old VCR or one of those three-hour-long always-needs-to-be-rewound tapes if you hit them in the head with it. All they probably know about the Mixtape is that Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy was devoted to one such. So there is much that Gen Z will never understand – such as this old-fashioned object some of us called a phone – and an ancient ‘blocking’ method:
Earlier phones were for talking to people – not for surfing the net, playing games, sending emails and a hundred other things. They were these bulky not-too-good-looking things. When we wanted to block people, we took the receiver off the phone, as this post from restauranter and influencer Harjinder Singh Kukreja says.
People had other ways that they would prevent people from calling – remember there was no caller ID. There was no way of identifying or blocking blank callers and heavy breathers.
A lot of people remembered this – though kids today may not even have seen one – except as some sort of retro décor item.
Today, when kids go out to play in the evening, they first text their friends to know who else is coming out.
When results are due, there are too many unwanted calls – extreme measures have to be taken.
Back in the day, choices were few – it was a case of block one, block all. If you took the receiver off to block one person, no one would be able to call – even the ones we wished would call.
Today, kids choose the people they want to block on social media, they can ghost them and more – there’s orbiting, breadcrumbing and benching etc. Back then, this would happen.
When parents wanted to ground kids, this was one of the methods employed – cutting off communication from the outside world.
The tweeple shared their own memories of the ‘landline’; something of a relic from the past now. A lot of people will remember times when all we had was the old black telephone not even the newer, coloured ones with the smoother dial.
When we took the receiver off the cradle, we heard that annoying beep, beep sound… something else that the tweeple seemed nostalgic about as they chatted about this ancient form of ‘blocking’.
Do you have something interesting you would like to share? Write to us at [email protected]
