How Did We Survive Without Cell Phones?

Recently, I found myself out on the town in New York City with one bar of power on my cellphone. Just one bar, and the night had just started! I threw my head up in frustration; I couldn't believe that I had forgotten to charge my phone overnight.

About an hour later when my phone started blinking and beeping, alerting me of the news that I had been dreading, I started to panic a little. What would I do without my cell phone ? What would happen when I had absolutely no cell power? How would my friends get in touch with me? How would I notify them that I was on my way? What if I couldn't find my way around and needed a navigator? What if I needed to find a phone number?

Life without cell phones can be depressing. When my phone finally died, I found myself feeling cold, alone (except for my friend being there of course), and disconnected from the rest of the world. When I parted with my friend later, I had absolutely no ability to get in touch with my friends or family. And do you know how hard it is to find quarters at four in the morning?

How Did We Do It?

I grew up in the era when we didn't have cell phones at all. Back then, we used beepers and pagers. If someone needed you urgently, they would beep you, and if you had a quarter and were near a phone you would call them back. If there was no pay phone, that person would just have to wait.

I just don't know how we managed without cell phones . When you got a flat tire or ran out of gas in some remote area far from civilization, how did you get in touch with the tow company? If you were late meeting someone because of unexpected heavy traffic, how did they know you were on your way?

Basically, you just suffered. You would most likely end up having to walk miles to find a pay phone, or risk being left by your friends when they just couldn't wait any longer.

Next to the Internet, cell phones are quite possibly the most useful and important inventions of the 20^th century. Without cell phones, we would still be miserably out of touch with the rest of the world.

Text Messaging

Let's not even start on the blessings of text messaging. If you've ever been on the phone with someone and all you can think about is how you're going to get off without offending them, you know how valuable text messaging is. Years ago, we would have to suffer through a long phone call we barely had the time to tolerate.

But now, instead of having to be suspended in time by a long, sometimes uncomfortable phone call to a family member, friend, or business associate, we can now just send a quick message to give them information or just let them know that we're thinking about them. Text messaging is a beautiful innovation that it would be almost impossible to do without now that we have it.

Without cell phones who knows how we would get by. I guess we would manage of course, but life would definitely be more of a challenge if our only option was a beeper and a pay phone.