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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/10105454
• Gen Z’s nostalgia for the early 2000s is sparking a revival of landline phones, seen as a retro-chic escape from the digital age.
• Influenced by '90s and 2000s TV shows, young adults like Nicole Randone and Sam Casper embrace landlines for their vintage appeal.
• Urban Outfitters capitalizes on Gen Z’s love for nostalgia by selling retro items like landline phones alongside fashion trends from the '90s and 2000s.
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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.
Haha I’m driving my 13-year-old car like, what you all don’t have buttons?!
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.)
Weird! Am I the only one who hasn’t completely replaced old equipment? I have all of those with me, including landline, radios, flashlights, TV, scientific calculators, keyboards, etc.
And as you mentioned, I prefer those individual equipment over smartphones unless the convenience really matters (like when traveling).
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.
They made a new Razr flip. Though Im slightly skeptical on the longevity of slamming glass against glass hundreds of times. Still looks cool though!
It does look cool! I’m worried about that too, though. I would only be buying it for the “snap it shut” action, and it’s more expensive than any other phone I’ve owned. The original Razr was premium for it’s time, but that was when “premium phone” meant $300.
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.
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.
40 years old. Haven’t been satisfied with a phone-slam since before my first cordless phone in 2001.
Yeah, angrily jabbing a phone screen realllllyyyy does not have the same satisfaction whatsoever.
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.
Speakerphone makes me self-conscious in public
I would feel self conscious if people looked at me thinking I was crazy, talking to myself.
Lol I’ve experienced that too, especially if they can’t see my ears.
Unfortunately I’ve yet to find a pair of earbuds that doesn’t fall out or hurt my ears (or both), Either my ears are shaped differently than the average or I have to spend more to find the right pair. I would use headphones instead, but they’re hard to lug around and most work days I interact with customers so it’s a no-go.
Oh, that’s too bad. There are band-style or hook-style versions that could maybe help with that, but yeah most of them are buds.
One thing I’ll say is that when I used to wear wired buds, they would fall out all the time and I thought I just had weird-shaped ears or something… But when I got into wireless buds, I tried out a bunch of styles and found that without the cord, they stay in way more reliably. Wired ones would fall out when I turn my head or just walk 10 steps, but with wireless ones, I can shake my head or run or anything, and they stay in. I guess the weight/movement of the cord makes a big difference, at least for me.
I hadn’t thought about the wire affecting it, that could well be! Thanks for the input, I may have to take another look at some buds.
Okay but what do I do if I’m not wearing my buds when I receive a surprise call?
I just pop em in then answer. Or answer then pop em in.
I keep my buds in their own case in a special pocket of my backpack. If I’m sitting at my desk and get a call, I need to pause what I’m doing, stand up, extricate myself from my work corner, go to my bag, open the special pocket, take out the charging case, take out the buds, and put them in. And I have to do it either in the 10 seconds I have to answer the call, or one handed while having a conversation.
Oh, mine live either in my pocket or on my desk in most cases, so it’s usually pretty quick. You can also start the call without them and then switch to them after a minute or two once you’ve performed the necessary extraction procedure.
wth. radiation proof? is this for visiting the chernobyl exclusion zone?
Haha I guess it’s just a weird translation
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.
Might last a day or few if it’s even true. Just like how they were all ditching smartphones for Nokias recently.
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.
Probably positioning. Land lines generally went the length of your whole face. The mic was angled and right in front of your mouth.
For what it’s worth, we had one of these for a while:
You’ll be at home anywhere there’s a cellular signal and an electrical outlet. Simply plug the wireless home phone base into the wall. Then, plug your home phone into the base, and you can make and receive calls as you normally would…
You wanted to say that some gen Zers buy novelty Bluetooth headphones that look like a phone with a cord on it, right? Also: who still had a cord in the 2000’s besides super important business ppl?
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?
I think it does work like that. Companies do spend money to promote heir products in non obvious ways. Nowadays Influencers use products even without stating that they are being sponsored. There were news that gas companies were paying Influencers to make photos cooking over gas stoves. This hangs also on the opinion many seem to have that cooking with gas is much better then induction or similar.
Companies also pay for “news” articles sometimes. Sometimes you see these “news” articles about the super innovative startup in your area that is about to unleash the next big thing into the world. You read and it’s only an article built on promises. No actual thing that is worth reporting as news happened, but the company is now featured in the news papers.
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.
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
This seems like a dumb tiktok trend or some shit.
a lot of these articles are trash for this reason. most of it shouldn’t be posted tbh
it’s from the nypost - a tabloid rag from rupert murdoch - what did you expect?
There’s just zero merit to these “people on the internet are saying X” stories.
Nothing of value to sourcing a few retweets, ticktock duets, instagram stories, or whatever the fuck TMTMTM version of it you get.
Actual street interviews with random schlubs are far, far more informative than this crap. The internet is huge and you can find literally any opinions on it. Sourcing these anecdotes is absolutely the trashiest tier of journalism and anyone writing one of these stories should think hard about an immediate career change.
Run a fucking poll if you want to write a story about public opinion.
The world will be a better place the day after every serious news media organization leaves twitter and tells all their journalists they cannot use it as anything other than an original source to what a specific public figure has to say.
The world will be a better place the day after every serious news media organization leaves twitter and tells all their journalists they cannot use it as anything other than an original source to what a specific public figure has to say.
YES!!!
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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!
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.
Newer ones aren’t that large, but why bother when you have a cellphone always with you anyway
Same reason I like running retro consoles/hardware. The process itself is part of the fun.
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.
we still play that game. at least once every week or two, i’m calling a ‘lost’ phone from another or using the handset locator on a cordless system.
It’s not clear these people wouldn’t have a cellphone as well.
I swear, these article-writers just hear about a few quirky teenagers and immediately label it a viral trend that will sweep the entire world…
It doesn’t say anything about getting rid of their cell phone for one. The article says quite the opposite actually.
While Gen Zers definitely don’t need a landline — still relying on their cellphones for virtually everything — it’s the aesthetic of “2000s nostalgia” that makes the relic so attractive to them.
What? Nobody does that
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I’m starting to view fads as a form of annealing. To knock ourselves out of local maxima, humans have an predisposition for finding a reason to go back and try old stuff again. If there was something useful to it, it’ll be reflected in the tools they create. I guess rebellion in general is just as evolutionarily useful as conformity. The Exploration/Exploitation dichotomy.
No one is “bringing back” landlines. What a fucking retarded claim to make.
The article doesn’t offer a single statistic suggesting there is a resurgence of landlines, much less that Gen Z folks are responsible for it. It’s basically just a fiction piece.
Are you accusing the New York Post of not being hard-hitting journalism?
I don’t know why I’m surprised. I guess I just assumed there would be some link to reality.
Dare I say, this news is falsified?
Casual slur use is cool and normal
Wired, VoIP phones are viable. Landlines aren’t. ATAs convert old landline phones into VoIP phones.
You would think that by now it would all be that, but when I moved in my city and wanted to take my phonenumber with me they said it was impossible because many areas still had the old style switch relays and they could Not move new numbera to it
I 100% agree, but is there any way we could kind of keep working to phase out retarded from common vocabulary. It’s just such a charged and unnecessary word to use as a pejorative.
I would argue words change meaning and if you dont like that word you also shouldn’t use “stupid” or “dumb”. I’ve never heard anyone disparage a person with intellectual disabilities using that term so in my mind it just means… How should I phrase this for someone so sensitive… “Very much not smart”. Idiot should be fine since it comes from a word meaning “common person”. I don’t use the word anymore because i don’t want to push even sensitive people away, but I do think the whole thing is pretty silly.
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You dont know how not smart I am
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Oh so you just say this to everyone to avoid conversation.
Got it. Another entry for the troll list lmao.
I already said at the beginning I don’t use the word, yall are so fucking sensitive. Get a life, touch some grass.
It’s literally what everyone here called mentally disabled people in the 90s. And it was meant to be insulting.
Look dude it doesn’t matter what word you use, there will always be a word or phrase to convey the essence of what the r-word represents. Its all just a treadmil of expressions, you can cancel the r-word and then in 20 years we can have this exact conversation about “stupid” and “dumb”.
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I am not reading all of that
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Give up trying to fight alongside people because there’s no way you’re gonna win.
Sounds pretty cowardly
Im too not smart to understand what you are trying to say
Do you agree or disagree with the first sentence
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It’s 2024. Stop using that word. I know I don’t need to explain why.
Why idiot, imbecille and moron are okay but retard is off-limits? All of these words have been used in a psychological classification system in the past yet retard seems to be the only one people take issue with.
Idiots. —Those so defective that the mental development never exceeds that or a normal child of about two years.
Imbeciles. —Those whose development is higher than that of an idiot, but whose intelligence does not exceed that of a normal child of about seven years.
Morons. —Those whose mental development is above that of an imbecile, but does not exceed that of a normal child of about twelve years.
Edmund Burke Huey, Backward and Feeble-Minded Children, 1912
Stop arguing about what slurs are okay to use. The only rule around here is to be nice. If someone asks you to not use a word because it hurts them, the nice thing to do is to listen.
Because language is fluid and changes with societal use. We don’t all defer to linguistic norms from hundreds or even thousands of years ago when literally everything about life would be alien to us now.
I’m sure you didn’t intend to post such a nice comment (based on the historical definition of the word)…
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You’re free to go thru my post history and try to find examples of me calling people hurtful names. You just wont find any because that’s not how I behave and that’s not what my question is about.
My question is pretty simple; why this specific term? It feels so arbitrary. There doesn’t seem to be any logic behind it. I wont get mobbed if I call someone an idiot but for some reason retard is off limits. Why?
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I feel like you’re completely ignoring my original question. Seeing that despite being controversial it has 12 upvotes and zero downvotes then maybe that’s an indication that it’s a valid question and I’m not the only one wondering the same thing.
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You could at least act ignorant rather than trying to logic your hatefulness
It’s more recent. Just the euphemism treadmill in action.
Basically, some people are clinically unintelligent out of no fault of their own, and we’d rather they not get caught in the crossfire when insults are being hurtled. The approach to that has been to try and avoid unintelligence-based insults, but it hasn’t worked, because it actually is just better to be smarter.
I don’t really have a better suggestion, though.
