I Would Accept That Time Travel Invitation

7 min readMay 18, 2024

May 17, 2024, 10:43 pm
Filed under: Gen X, Social Media, technology | Tags: 70s, 80s, cell phones, genies out of bottles, globalization, technology, the internet, Time Machine, Time Travel

The other day, I was feeling so much despair about how things are and where we were headed as a culture. I thought, “If someone showed up with a time machine and asked me if I wanted to go back to the 70s or 80s to live, I’d absolutely say yes.”

I told my friend about this feeling and she said, “I’m coming with you.” We figured we should bring her kids and her husband (she was pretty sure they’d want to go, too), and my partner and maybe another friend of ours and her family — if they were up for it — and we were ready to start over in the past. A past that would be familiar, because we lived through those decades as children, but would likely look different through our adult eyes.

It just feels as though our wired-up world has gone too far and is probably irreversible so starting over in the past seems easier somehow. Back there in time, we could have an evening with friends stretch out into the night as if we were the only people in the world for a while. We wouldn’t have a thousand other people in our pockets, waiting for our attention. We’d only look at the news once or twice a day. We’d write letters. We’d call our families on the telephone. If they weren’t home, we’d call back later. We’d read books from the library and watch TV when it was on. There’s something very appealing about scaling back to the speed and scale of earlier times.

But even while I was fantasizing, I was trying to appreciate the advances of now that I would miss if we went back in time. What would I need to pack? I’d have to bring back a lifetime supply of migraine medication, for one. I would not want to rely on the old stuff. Would I want to stash a laptop in our time machine? In the 70s and 80s, I didn’t have much use for computers but now — my laptop is an important tool for my writing and I record my music and podcasts on it. Come to think of it — will I have to convert a bunch of podcasts to cassette so I can keep some podcasting in my life? Or maybe I just listen to the radio again.

There are many things to appreciate about a smart phone but I’m fairly certain I’d be happy to surrender mine. I like being able to check the weather or the ferry schedule or text my friend when I’m late but life without it was somehow better. Having the world in our pockets is kind of a lot to carry.

I have pretty decent boundaries when it comes to my tech. I only check my email on my computer (unless it’s an emergency). I try to set time limits on social media and I am very willing to ignore calls or texts. I’m sure I’ve shared this story before — but back when cell phones were starting to become ubiquitous — a friend of mine worried about getting one because she didn’t want to be reachable all the time. I didn’t have one yet either but we laughed at her because we felt she could just turn her phone off if she wanted to be left alone. “Ohhhhh,” she said, “I guess I could.” Well — joke’s on us because she was right and we were wrong. Hardly anyone turns off their phones to be left alone anymore. We are expected to be almost always available.

I had no cell service while I was in Greece last year and I could only get wifi up at the top of the hill of our village. It was kind of nice. But it was also a bit stressful since everyone else in my life was NOT in a Cretan Village with no wifi or cell service.

I was a very slow adopter of the smartphone. I resisted a very long time but I caved. Yes, I did. But to live again in a world without these very useful tools would be really nice.

There are a bunch of foods I would miss back in the past, of course, ones I assume I’d have trouble getting. I’d long for bubble tea and Vietnamese coffee. Depending on where we landed our time machine, it might be hard to get avocados or mangos. (I didn’t really have either until college maybe?) Would I ever see a gooseberry again? I’d miss the globalization of food in a lot of ways if I went back in time. I feel fairly certain it was probably harder to find good coffee in those years. I don’t know, though, because I didn’t fall for coffee until the 90s.

I’d have to re-learn a bunch of stuff, I’m sure — but I think in exchange, I’d get a life less interrupted. I would be present everywhere I went. I would, I suspect, be a lot less anxious. If I was worried about news from my doctor, I would just expect a phone call, not multiple texts to let me know there was an email. I’d have less information available. I wouldn’t be able to see my test results in a medical portal — but on the plus side, I’d hear about those results directly from a doctor and not spend weeks wondering what they meant and falling down a self-diagnosing rabbit hole. However, if I got diagnosed with something serious, I’d want to get back here to the present, pronto. Treatments have improved a lot in the last few decades.

I am so much less at ease in this world with all these devices and ways to reach me but at the same time I value so many things on the internet. Wikipedia is a wonder. What will I do without Etymology On-line? When I go back in time, I’m going to have to go to the library again to find things out. And I love being able to access a world of music in my pocket — but is it really better than going to hang out in record stores? Music is incredibly important to me. I used to spend money I didn’t really have to get it. But I just added up all my receipts from last year (for my taxes) and I bought no music. I just have a subscription to Spotify, who are cartoon villains that don’t even pay their less popular artists at all anymore. I want to go back in time and buy albums from all my favorite artists to play on my record player. Music just doesn’t sound as good on my phone or my computer. Will I be sad to give up my access to newer or younger more far-flung artists when I go to the past? I will. I will miss Ellie Dixon and Fatoumata Diawara, for example. But I will re-listen to XTC’s Skylarking with a lot more attention.

I was listening to a podcast about a new, terrifying technology that now exists (face searching) and there was a lot of talk about whether or not we could put the genie back in the bottle. I guess my fantasy of going back in time is a fantasy of putting a lot of genies back in their bottles at once. Each step along the way felt sort of unremarkable at the time. Like, sure, neat…cell phones! People carry them around with them! They must really love talking on the phone! And then — oh, texting. I guess that’s kind of handy, now that somehow so many of us ended up with these in our pockets. And now we have the whole internet in our pockets, too? And all of our friends, via all the social networks and what not. We’re so connected! And yet somehow, even though I have thousands of friends there, I have fewer and fewer in real life. Is this the dream? If someone had let me know the trade-offs when this kicked off, I wouldn’t have chosen it. But, then, I don’t think it was ever much of a choice. I resisted all of these things until I had to join in. I wasn’t on board until most everyone else was already on board. We are social animals — when six monkeys have a cell phone, that seventh monkey will get one, too, eventually, if it wants to hang out with other monkeys.

So, having watched this reality form, slowly, slowly, without my enthusiastic consent, I feel ready to return to simpler, less cyber-connected, but more human-connected, times. If it takes a time machine to do it, I’m in. And I’m bringing a whole community with me, I’d wager.