2 Teens Can’t Figure Out How To Use A Rotary Phone
on May 08, 2019 • Updated Jan 13, 2022
Growing up, we all had to deal with life and a landline – heck, most of us even had to deal with the whole “party line” lifestyle where you had to remember what your own ring sounded like so that you didn’t answer your neighbor’s call.
But these days, kids and millennials barely even recognize phones like they used to be. When you say “phone” they automatically just assume you mean a smartphone.
https://twitter.com/SilverAgeTV/status/1120351042128969729
While you might be open to understanding how a youngster would be confused by a rotary phone, party line, and the like – what baffles us most is that they often don’t even know what a dial tone is…and those are still used!
All over pop culture, you will see references to the past and various implementations of older phones. Music videos feature them, movies set in an older time, and even Netflix’s popular re-airing of Friends is filled with older phones.
With all these opportunities to see history in action, it’s fair to wonder how these kids never picked up how to use this “old” piece of technology!
I wonder the number of people who still use old rotary phones. This tech seems traditional & exotic but it's kinda archaic for my generation. Most of my generation probably don't know how to use it. pic.twitter.com/KkXJTk2m4x
— Stephen Adofo Kissi (T'Challa) (@KissiSteve) May 5, 2019
In this absolutely hysterical video from dad Kevin Bumstead, he got his 17-year-old son and nephew together for what he calls “The 4-Minute Phone Challenge.”
The idea of the game is simple: you have just four minutes to dial a specific phone number on a rotary phone. The hard part is not knowing anything about how a rotary phone works!
The clip kicks off with Bumstead giving the two boys a pad of paper with a phone number written down and telling them they have four minutes to dial the phone number.
As the two teens try to figure out how to use the phone, they are fiddling with the rotary dial and confusing themselves – but they haven’t even picked up the receiver yet!
Eventually, they get the idea of dialing zero, but when they are told they need to pick up the phone to properly use it – one of them utters these five jaw-dropping words: “What does zero sound like?”
Watch this hysterical encounter below – and let us know if your own kids would know how to use this!
