A video of teens being baffled by old-fashioned rotary telephones has gone viral, and it shows just much technology has changed in the last few decades.
As part of a thread showing things “today’s kids wouldn’t understand”, someone posted the clip, showing two teenage boys being presented with the phone and being tasked with dialing a telephone number from it in four minutes.
Old fashioned dial telephone *SOUND ON* pic.twitter.com/rhE9rDP1Q7
— Jo-Anne Burrow (@lalaburrow) January 2, 2022
Sounds simple? Maybe not.
“How do we restart it?” one says.
“Just fiddle with them a bit?” the other says as they try and work out how to dial each number.
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Eventually the work out that you need to rotate the dial to make it register but they don’t know how much to rotate it by - until it reaches the metal stop - and it also takes them a while to realise the handset actually needs to be put to their ear.
The video stops abruptly so it is unclear if the boys successfully made a phone call but given they were struggling we doubt it.
The video has received 6.7 million views and reacting to it, people thought it was hilarious though it also made them feel a little old.
Did they ever work it out?
— The Witchy Woman 💙 (@vampywitchy) January 2, 2022
I dont know whether to laugh or cry
— Caroline Ost (@JewishCatMother) January 2, 2022
I feel old - we had a phone like this at home!
— Claire Bradley (@Claire_Bradley0) January 2, 2022
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA https://t.co/mR9AT9nGDk
— Emily Johnson (@johnsonemilyp) January 2, 2022
This is wonderful https://t.co/Z0TzYjh7Vv
— Simon Myerson QC (@SCynic1) January 2, 2022
Classic Gen Z.
