Phones Used to Connect Us
Substack Newsletter March 21, 2025
When my son was as senior in high school, I gave him a rotary phone for a holiday gift. For fun. Which it really was. And for a reason. I wanted him to experience a device that was designed purely for connection. It was 2019. Addiction to cell phone use amongst teenagers was already rampant. Today, one US study finds that 83% of teens use a cell phone daily with an addiction rate of 37% and an average of 7-9 hours spent on screen time (links to more information below). Here’s what happened with my son and the rotary phone:
“This is fire,” he said. “How does work?”
“You tell me.” I plugged it in to the analogue port on our cable modem.
He stared. Then pressed the rotary numbers. “It’s broken,” he said.
“It’s not broken,” I laughed. “You don’t press the numbers. You dial them.”
“What do you mean, dial?” (This is a straight A student.)
“Stick your finger in the round hole by the number and turn it.”
He stuck his finger in the circle and tried to go left. It didn’t move. “Mooooommmmm, it’s broken.”
“Dial to the right,” I laughed.
He did. But he didn’t go all the way to the little silver hook that indicates how far to dial (see image above). He also didn’t know how to let go so it would rotate back to the left on its own. I finally had to show him. He tried to dial his girlfriend (after he looked up her number on his cell). A 6-1-and-7 later, he was frustrated.
“This is going to take forever,” he said. He also hadn’t figured out that you have to lift the receiver before you dial. (It was too much fun not to tell him.) He finished dialing. Of course, nothing happened.
“It doesn’t work, Mom. Seriously.”
Laughing tears rolled down my face. “It does work. Call the phone number from your cell.” (Click the video)
“So, why won’t it work when I dial?” he asked.
“You have to pick up the receiver first.” He was confused. “The thing on top. You have to hold it to your ear.” (This remains the funniest 5-minutes of my life.)
He held it upside down. (OMG)
I turned it around for him. He looked perplexed. “It’s making a weird noise.”
“That’s the dial tone,” I blurted. “You have to hear that first to be sure you have a connection and then you dial.”
“OMG,” he said. “I’m not dialing all those numbers again.” He left the room to text his girlfriend and asked her to call the number.
“It’s hilarious,” he said to her. “Wait, let me turn up the volume. There’s this thing on the bottom…” The “thing” only controls the volume of the ringer not the earpiece. Through laughing tears I finally told him. He laughed, too.
After he hung up with his GF, and I got control of my laughter, he said, “I don’t get how anyone functioned before.”
“With a lot more focus,” I said. “And a lot more skill in communicating. We had to practice focus when we used the phone. You guys are constantly practicing distraction.” We talked briefly, until he began texting all his friends about it.
More powerful than my words was the first-hand experience my son received about another way to use a phone. The original way. The way that required intention, focus and connection in order to communicate. As he discovered, it took effort to dial. To recall the phone number. You couldn’t Google or text while you were talking. You had to focus one thing: staying connected to the person you were talking to. And you had to talk. Use sentences. Communicate without emojis and acronyms. Respond in realtime. Learn to LISTEN.
Here are some results from a PEW Research Center survey of 1,453 U.S. teens ages 13-17 and their parents completed in fall of 2023:
Phone-less: 72% of U.S. teens say they often or sometimes feel peaceful when they don’t have their smartphone; 44% say it makes them feel anxious.
Good for hobbies, less so for socialization: 69% of teens say smartphones make it easier for youth to pursue hobbies and interests; fewer (30%) say it helps people their age learn good social skills.
Distracted parenting: Nearly half of teens (46%) say their parent is at least sometimes distracted by their phone when they’re trying to talk to them.
Smartphone standoffs: About four-in-ten parents and teens report regularly arguing with one another about time spent on their phone.
I remember arguing my siblings about whose turn it was to use the phone and them yelling at me to hang up. But that arguing required interaction and learning how to share. And sometimes bonding when Dad got the phone bill that month and we all insisted it wasn’t us who made the long distance call during the expensive time before 9pm.
Using a corded phone (rotary or push button) also required you to manage the built in element of the unexpected. To practice patience. And delayed gratification. When you dialed, you had no idea what would happen. Would your friend answer? Or no one? Or a mom or dad? Would you get a busy signal? Would your rival get through before you did and Allison would already have a date to the prom? You learned to use phone etiquette: “Hello, Mr. Smith. This is Jesse. May I speak to Allison, please? Thank you.” Mr. Smith might have said ‘no.’ Or start a game of twenty questions.
After you hung up, that was it. Life went on. Your did homework. Went outside. Daydreamed. Created. Rode bikes with your neighborhood friends. Played with your dog. Or your siblings. You helped with dinner. The corded phone enhanced life. It wasn’t where you pretended to live life. Or avoid it. Distract yourself from it. Or compare yourself to the photo-enhanced lives of others.
No one was addicted to a corded phone.
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Last year, when my son (now 23) was home from for the holidays, we watched a comedy-mystery from the 1970’s called, Murder on the Nile. A group of random travelers journeyed down the Nile River on a small, cruise ship-like boat. One evening, just before the murder, the guests gathered in the common room to talk.
My son sighed and said, “It must have been so cool to live in the ‘70’s.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“No cell phones. People could just sit around and talk to each other.”
“Dude, they still can,” I said.
He smirked. “No one says ‘dude’ anymore, Mom. You’d know if you Googled it on your cell.”
“Very funny,” I said.
He smiled and turned off his phone.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION on effects of cell phone use on teens:
National Library of Medicine (NIH) has a wealth of information. Search: Teens and Cell Phone Use.
Survey Results, How Teens and Parents Approach Screen Time.