2006

Before it All Changed

In the late 90s, when I was a teenager, I used to have long conversations with my uncle. Since my own father was back in Cuba, my uncle was a father figure and someone I looked up to. We would talk for hours on many subjects as he would light cigarette after cigarette.

One evening, as the sun dipped low and the room filled with smoke and shadows, he leaned back and said something that has stuck with me ever since.

"You know," he said, exhaling a long stream of smoke, "I think one of the worst things to happen to the family is the television."

I looked at him, curious.

"Think about it," he continued, flicking ash into a tray. "Four people, sitting in a room, staring at a glowing box for hours. Not talking. Not connecting. Just zoning out. We even arrange our whole living rooms around it. The couch, the chairs, everything points to the TV."

I didn’t realize it then, but he wasn’t just talking about television. He was talking about technology—and the way it has crept into every corner of our lives.

Of course, we didn’t know how much things were going to change about a decade later in 2007, when the iPhone came out. You’re probably reading this on your phone. The average American spends anywhere from four to five hours on their phone.

Go to any public place and watch how many people are on their phones. Observe couples on what seems to be a date night and you’ll often see both of them on their phones. If you look closely, you’ll notice hat unmistakable glow on their faces as they scroll from one app to the next, checking the constant barrage of notifications and enticing videos.

“Spend one more minute here,” the apps ask, often to the detriment of in-person relationships. I know that we’re more connected, but are we any less isolated? I feel that the “connection” is more on the technical side of things, and not the human element.

Remember 2006?

There were phones, yes. Some you could even use to get on the Internet, but the connection was slow and there was no App Store.

What did you use to do with your time? If you’re now spending five hours on your phone daily, what would have done with that time then? Where did those hours go? Did you use to make eye contact with your friends when they talked to you? Were you able to watch a movie without any technological interruptions?

I certainly used to read more. I used to write more. I used to talk to people more without checking my phone while they were mid-sentence.

What was your life like back then before the iPhone?

Because here’s the thing—this isn’t over. In fact, we’re standing at the edge of another huge shift. Artificial Intelligence isn’t just coming; it’s already here. And what’s coming next? It’s going to make the iPhone look quaint.

There’s a new device on the horizon—maybe it’ll be a headset, or glasses, or something we can’t even imagine yet. And it’s going to integrate AI deeply into our daily lives. It’ll make our phones seem like relics. And the scariest part? We’ll probably spend ten hours a day on it.

More connection. More efficiency. More… isolation.

I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t even know if we can stop it. These technologies move faster than we can regulate them, faster than we can fully understand their impact. All I know is that every time I look back at how we used to live—those long conversations with my uncle, the afternoons spent reading instead of scrolling—I feel a sense of nostalgia.

I’m not saying we should smash our phones and go live in the woods. I’m not even anti-technology. I use it just as much as anyone else. But I do think it’s worth pausing every now and then to ask: What is all this really costing us?

Maybe we can’t stop the wave of technology that’s coming. But we can remember.

We can remember what it felt like to sit across from someone and really listen. To walk around without checking our pockets every few minutes. To be fully present in the moment.

And maybe, just maybe, we can carve out little pockets of that old world for ourselves. A Sunday afternoon without phones. A dinner where everyone leaves their devices in another room. An hour spent reading instead of scrolling.

Because the truth is, no app, no device, no algorithm will ever replace that simple, beautiful thing we all need—human connection.

Thanks for reading.