Member-only story
A Personal History in Nine Mobile Phones
Twenty years of life and technology changing in tandem
1st
It isn’t mine, but my mother’s, though I am allowed to carry it at times. There was some discussion in the house over whether it was worth the cost — this being back before my mother turned into a gadget hound like everyone else.
I have this one with me when I go to my first high school dance. Being too bulky to comfortably fit in my pocket, I am forced by circumstance to use a belt clip — just like one of those on-the-go 90s business types who wanted you to know he was a 90s business type who owned a mobile phone. This is not a normal sight in small-town Kansas in the early 00s. People make remarks. One upperclassman calls me a “pimp” — it was a compliment back then.
2nd
Ostensibly, this is a birthday present. In really, it is a gift from my mother to herself. I have absolutely no need for the thing, though that’s beside the point. This is what we used to call an “emergency phone,” the kind of thing you keep in your car in case things go south. It sits in the central console alongside a slightly out-of-date road map and a handful of miscellaneous hard candy until you have a problem.
Fun fact about emergency phones: Like any other electronic device, they aren’t very useful if you don’t charge them. I never did, and consequently mine was always dead. The few times I might have needed to make a call, the phone had no charge.
3rd
It is a red clamshell phone of a type very common among the college set — graduation gifts, no doubt. It comes equipped with a completely unnecessary belt clip (this one was certainly small enough to fit in your pocket) and a camera that could take a picture you’d almost be able to make out.
I rarely use this one, or at least not nearly as much as some people I know. Consequently, it isn’t turned on very much. Oh, I’ll turn it on to order delivery, and once in a while I might expect a call, but after making or receiving that call I’ll immediately turn it off. Combined with the low natural power usage, I can go weeks without having to plug this thing in. In retrospect, that’s pretty rad
