10 Things Cellphones Have Made Irrelevant

Everything you need is in your phone, so who needs this crap? Here is a list of technologies and social activities that have been rendered obsolete by the mobile phone.

1. Pay Phones

Kevin Strishock / CC BY http://2.0 / flic.kr

In the old days people would plop quarters into disease-covered changing rooms to phone their dates and let them know they’d be 45 minutes late, because they had to clean the Hep-C from their earlobes.

2. Asking For Directions

SAN_DRINO / CC BY http://2.0 / flic.kr

Remember when you had to pull over to ask perfect strangers how to get where you were going? Didn’t think so. Nowadays we ask the internet, and it’s only wrong 50% of the time! Thanks internet for making talking to people obsolete.

3. Speaking

Pedro Ribeiro Simões / CC BY http://2.0 / flic.kr

Speaking of speaking, the majority of human interaction used to occur in the form of speaking to one another, using our voices to communicate. Now we just type with our thumbs, and nothing is ever misconstrued, because it is impossible to read anything into text that isn’t there.

4. Passing Notes

Lindsay / CC BY http://2.0 / flic.kr

Teenagers used to compose enthralling tomes that hinged on inquisitives like, “I think you’re hot? Do you like me? Like, like like me?” The answers would take entire periods to come back and included soul-shattering responses like, “no”. Now they just text, “L?^” , and, “OMGLOLWTF? No.”

5. Gaming Systems

William Warby / CC BY http://2.0 / flic.kr

You can't play Angry Birds on an Atari 2600, and that's just sad.

6. Portable Music Player

Dan Taylor / CC BY http://2.0 / flic.kr

I stopped buying portable music players quicker than I stopped taping songs off the radio. As soon as you have one device that holds your music and does everything else, why do you need another that just holds your music? Well, you don’t.

7. Newspapers

Wolfgang Lonien / CC BY-SA http://2.0 / flic.kr

TV news didn’t kill the daily spread, but Twitter on your phone did. You don’t need someone to filter your news for you when you can do it yourself by picking and choosing whom to follow. And on Twitter you hear the latest first, and before someone has time to process it, fact check it, and legitimize it.

8. Cameras

Vernon Chan / CC BY http://2.0 / flic.kr

Phones have 8 megapixel cameras on them now. I don’t know what 8 megapixels means, but I know I don’t have to buy a point and shoot camera anymore because my phone does just fine when I need to snap a quick pic of someone passed out at a party with wieners drawn all over their face.

9. Alone Time

Helga Weber / CC BY-ND http://2.0 / flic.kr

Cellphones are great for all the things they combine into one and, stuff they make easier, and all that hoo-ha, but the down side is you are always reachable. That means that you are always at work, always available to your friends and family, always expected to respond and contribute. We used to have downtime, we used to be able to decompress, now we’re at the mercy of our ironic ring tones.

10. Making Plans

Seattle Municipal Archives / CC BY http://2.0 / flic.kr

In the long, long ago we would make plans before we did, well, anything. Where are we going? How will we get there? Where will we meet? What time? How long should I wait? Now we just go, and call or text when we get there. There is an entire set of critical thinking skills that we don’t need anymore, because of the convenience offered by the mobile phone. Where does that go? All that brain capacity? I think it’s where LOL cats came from.