Before Stickers, Emoticons and GIFs

Nostalgia.

I found one notebook. Out of a thousand notebooks I keep (because I am a scribbler of short notes, verses, thoughts and stories), I have one that is my "backup" for my phone.

You see, way before we have smart phones, android, iphone, etcetera, we have those handsets in 2G. I did not know much about it until I accidentally saw my Dad's company-issued phone when I was looking through his drawers.

I saw my classmates bring theirs in school and the game Snake was fun. But I never thought I can have or own a phone. I thought it was one of those things that only my classmates can have because economically, they have spare for those stuff. Same scenario for when I cannot have Archie comic book series, a Tamagochi, a GameBoy, etcetera. I get the chance to experience them by borrowing. Bless the hearts of my unselfish friends.

Veering off course a bit there. As I was saying, those phones before there was social media, and when phones came out affordable to most people, people became engrossed with unlimited text messaging. You'd think there is a conversation there but most of the time, they were quotations.

Mass messaging. Phones vibrating and alerting because of free sms about to expire soon.

But phones then did not have the capacity to store more than 30 messages (the progression was I think 10, then 20 , then 25 then 30). Some have 30 more capacity internally (shared space for sent messages and inbox), but it really was not enough. Eventually you will have to choose which messages have to go.

One way I saved those is to write them down. Kind of like a writing practice for me. You'd think one will have a better penmanship then. But no.

Just in case it is unreadable, it says,

"An unidentified flying ship landed in our planet 2 weeks ago & they are looking 4 the most gorgeous human being alive! Please.... Don't tell them u know me. I've been hiding!"

It was madness when you think about it. But everyone liked receiving messages. Some are originals others are passed around already. Most are hilarious. Facenook, Twitter and Instagram was not a thing then. So the only entertainment are the games and the SMS you saved to send to everyone else when you have time.

Per SMS, we also had limited number of characters allowed hence you have to shorten the words.

People later on became creative. Some phones can display four lines per screen. And my, oh, my the graphics that can be created!

Maddening effort, yeah? Innovators did a good job in finally being able to put graphics easily. Though the ones made in parentheses, commas, semi colons still has that personal touch to it, having the emoticons and the GIFs and the stickers makes it less taxing.

Phones don't get flooded with these type of sms now. Large screens display multi lines now. The fun of pressing the down key to show the next screen and be surprised is no longer applicable.

After few more generations I wonder what changes would have taken place that we would be looking back on and say, whoah, we have gone a long way!

Now I can retire this notebook. Because I can capture every page and then store it up in cloud. Oh the beauty of technology.

Some things kept for a long time brings back a review of milestones. Felt like I opened a time capsule.

What is your story?

© Pichi28 | #ClubBrokeBCH

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