In a recent blog posting on blog.wired.com, they wrote about Five Gadgets That Were Killed by the Cell Phone. I think there are few other things cell phones have killed that going back a few years we all relied on for our daily lives.
First is the now never visible public pay phone. Remember the days of landing at the airport and rushing the pay phones? Or how about driving around the block looking for a phone booth? Sure you can still find a few, but most have gone the way of the doe-doe bird.
How about the calculator? Especially in school, I was never far from my TI-85. Now my cell phone can do all the same formulas and send eMail! Take that TI.
How about the bicycle? My grandsons pick up the phone and IM their friends to see if they are home or if they want to get together and play video games. In my youth, I had to get on my bike and ride over to my friends house and knock on the door.
Gone are the days of writing a letter to your girl friend. Now we send encrypted text messages and sign with funny multi-character dohickies 
Lets us not forget the handheld game device. I use to have this really cool football game. You maneuvered your quarterback (a read dot) by rapidly pressing one of the four arrow buttons. You could run or pass. For hail mary passes, the red dot would scroll along several screens before merging with a red dash (your wide receiver). Oh, gone are the good ‘ole days.
Holding hands with your girl friend and talking. Now kids sit with their regular friends and talk on the phone with their girl friends. When I was Wesley’s age, you couldn’t pry me away from my girl friend. You never would have caught me hanging with the boys and my girlfriend.
Cell phones have changed our lives. Some of the changes have been for the good, many for the bad. Keeping up with society means adopting new technologies. While only 35% of people over the age of 65+ use the internet, 65% of the same age group have used a cell phone for an emergency situation. Cell phones has become integrated into our lives. While I miss my TI-85, my iPhone is much smaller, lighter and I can surf the internet.
