I used 90’s technology for a week

I used to find it annoying that the size of my iPhone made it too big for my jeans pocket. But the retro personal CD player I’m currently struggling with is really a problem. There’s no way this thing would fit in any pocket, and the cable on my headphones is so short it wouldn’t reach me anyway.

I tried to put the thing in the hood, but no luck – the neckline almost suffocated me and the cord dragged my head back. I resorted to wearing it. How did the children of the 90s survive?

I’m trying to mimic my weekly walk to the park with my iPhone and Airpods, but with 90s technology. If I ever get a chance to blast lyrics into my ears, it’s with this retro CD player and its wired headphones that accompany him.

Although I’m lucky enough to be able to hear Madonna’s voice over any passing car. In addition to the bluetooth technology, the noise cancellation, it seems, was also revolutionary.

I’m a 2002 baby, born in 2002, and the oldest piece of technology I can remember owning is a pink Nokia cell phone, the one that required four good presses for the letter “S” and three more for the letter “C”. ‘ – and a six-year-old red MP3 player.

By the time I was 14, I had the ability to simultaneously watch a YouTube video on my iPad, take selfies on Snapchat, and have Netflix on as background noise. It was a standard morning, afternoon, and evening, but sometimes, if I really wanted to challenge myself, I would also do homework on my laptop.

However, when I asked my parents and grandparents about their childhoods, I sometimes felt jealous of how much fun they seemed to have before social media. Research from Bumble for Friends shows that 66% of Gen Zers report meeting up with their friends online and, according to Save the Children, only one in four children regularly play outside compared to almost three quarters parts of their grandparents’ generation, who did. so a few times a week.

It just seemed so much more fun to knock on a friend’s door to see if they’re free to play caller than to peruse a shared Google calendar for a quick matcha coffee date.

And what about using physical make-up testers on the high street instead of an AI-powered app to swipe lipstick colours? This week, I decided, I would get as close as possible to this analog life, to see what I could learn.

I’ve done digital detox before, so I knew what to expect when it came to just using my regular phone for work: a bit of Fomo mixed with relief and serenity. It’s like coming back to the real world after being transported.

But this was no ordinary tech ban. I was trading my phone camera for an old Polaroid, Spotify for a Discman, and iMessages for phone calls and written letters. Netflix subscription was off and free TV (thank goodness I have a TV license).

I haven’t played a CD since I put the 2011 Olly Murs album in my mum’s car on the way to school, so getting one was the first hurdle. My boyfriend’s mom lent me some discs to get me through the week, but with only two options and no 10 second skip button, I was bored at first. Luckily the CD wasn’t scratched, like my childhood ones were, but not having different artists at my fingertips was a struggle.

When turning on the TV in the evening, the first thing that stood out was this EastEnders has changed The last episode I saw was in 2017 when Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell died; now, I barely knew the characters. This was my 7.30pm BBC slot ruined on the first night. It felt like starting a Netflix limited series on episode four and left me scrolling through the TV guide like a lost puppy. Do I have news for you?Channel 4 news, Coronation Street. Nothing was captivating. Without thousands of possible things to play, pause and then turn it off if you were bored and lost again. I gave up and read a book by Harlan Cohen.

Earlier in the week, he had warned friends that if he didn’t answer them, he was in fact alive, he would just banish them for seven days. Still, I figured my best friend might need some updates on my life, so I used pen and paper to let her know. Of course, I’ll probably get the letter after I get my trusty iPhone back, but it took a while and it was better than looking through horrible TV options.

For someone who writes for a living and talks to his best friend every day, it was incredibly difficult to say normal handwritten things to him. Maybe because this missive feels more concrete.

There is no going back; when it’s written, it’s in ink, it’s permanent. I’m also a triple messenger, a short but multiple messenger, if you will. Instead of explaining everything in one paragraph, I do it in four sentences sent separately that cause the correspondent’s phone to buzz unnecessarily. Now I was face to face with that annoying habit. I wasn’t paying for four tracked cards.

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I tried a phone call instead. The only people I usually call are my dad, because if I text him I just get a thumbs up in response, and my nana, who doesn’t know how to send a text. When my best friend answered the phone, the first thing she said was “what’s up?”.

Normally we would only do this in extreme circumstances, like the time I crashed my car. When I replied that it was to catch up, he laughed. “Just note my voice, I’ll listen to it later,” he said.

We managed a 10-minute conversation before she went to the gym, with the promise of meeting for coffee in two days. I reiterated that I wasn’t going to check my texts, so I couldn’t cancel.

On the third day, all my time was occupied with books. I hadn’t liked the CD player, the TV was boring, and I couldn’t communicate effectively with a pen, so this seemed like the best option.

It was a revelation. I used to be a big reader, and every year I won the school competition for the most books read. I definitely hadn’t enjoyed a good book in a few months, and even when I did, I’d get distracted by my phone or leave it for a few days between chapters when life got busy. Going back to it uninterrupted felt divine. I finished all 352 pages of Daisy Buchanan Pity party in one session.

The third day is the coffee date that I hope my friend will come to. As I sit in the coffee we agreed on five minutes earlier, I begin to think that I’ve probably chosen my most unreliable friend for this.

Without TikTok to scroll while I wait for him, I remember all the times he’s been late (most of them) or reordered. The clock on the wall seems to be mocking me as I sit staring into space. I should have brought a book.

When he arrives, 15 minutes after our agreed time, I am relieved. I see her using Apple Pay for an iced coffee (which I missed) and she sits down to show me an Instagram post.

I realize how many of my interactions depend on modern technology. Obviously, I’m not an oddity since most people in the coffee shop are on their phones, but it annoys me that so many of my in-person conversations depend on the internet. I wonder how many of the memories I could have created just by being in the moment have been tainted by my need to share them online.

There were other things I learned. Going to bed without scrolling through my phone first had a positive impact on the quality of my sleep, but my favorite part of being smartphone-free was waking up and getting on with my day without the my usual 20 minutes of checking the screen.

My generation is obsessed with wellness and finding ways to relax and unwind. We’re all searching our phones for the answers, but it turns out you just have to leave them.

But by far the best piece of ’90s technology, which I noticed on day four, was the Instax Mini 10, a Polaroid camera first released in 1998. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure when I put the first set of 10 films.

Not only was the camera hard to figure out how to use, it was bulky. Being almost 30 years old, I was expecting a black and white blur that might seem a bit much to get out of the obscenely large piece of technology.

So it was a pleasant surprise to love what I got: multiple memories packed into three-by-two-inch squares, with an image quality that felt bold and purposeful.

Just having a shot to capture a moment was refreshing: nothing had to be perfect, I didn’t need to retake it because a hair was out of place, I didn’t need to find a filter or try to hide my skin. They were raw images. And they are already framed on my floor.

What did I learn from my 90 week? Well, I’m sorry I didn’t get to experience the 1996 Tamagotchi as a youngster, or the first portable DVD player in 1998, or play the Sega Dreamcast. I didn’t miss social media as much as I thought I would; by the third day, I wasn’t even thinking about it, and I enjoyed just focusing on the next day, instead of other people’s breakfasts.

But I also live in an age where friends who live in different countries can contact each other, and I missed texting friends. At times, she was also restless from boredom. Yes, the online world can be toxic, but it’s also fun. Granted though, I’d probably have more hobbies if Netflix wasn’t around.

Am I still jealous of my parents and grandparents? a little bit But it’s my sister who really made me green-eyed with envy. Born in 1998, she was able to experience both worlds, without the need for a retro discman in the Noughties.