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Remember back when you could make someone a mixtape or a photo collage for Valentine’s Day? This year you’d have to make them a Spotify playlist or a Facebook photo memories video. And that’s really not the same.
A survey asked people to name the things that have been replaced by technology that they miss the most.
Here are the top 10 . . .
1. Making mixtapes.
2. Putting photos into albums.
3. Recording TV shows on your VCR.
4. Having printed photos around the house.
5. The excitement of seeing how the photos from a roll of film turned out.
6. Handwritten letters.
7. Sending love letters.
8. Sending postcards.
9. Having a penpal.
10. Buying CDs and having a CD collection.
A few things that just missed the top 10 are:
Phone books… playing board games… disposable cameras… owning encyclopedias… and “remembering phone numbers by heart.”
Samsung asked 2,000 people what they want their phones to do by 2036, and the answers did not disappoint.
Some are genius. Some are terrifying. All of them prove we’re sprinting toward a future where your phone might know you better than your mom.
One charge = one week of freedom
No more panicking at 3% while begging your Uber to arrive. People want a phone that can hold a charge for at least seven days. Bonus points if it charges just by moving around. You’d never need a charger again – just pace around your apartment like a caffeinated squirrel.
Languages no longer matter
Real-time translation during phone calls? Yes, please. Imagine chatting with anyone in the world, no Duolingo owl required. It’s like the Babel fish from Hitchhiker’s Guide, but less slimy and more Bluetooth.
Holograms, baby
We’re talking full-on Star Wars projections. 3D meetings, holographic selfies, maybe even midair cat videos. People want to interact with their screens in the air. The future is one big Zoom call where nobody’s pants are real.
Your phone is your life coach
Forget Googling. Folks want their phones to listen in and offer real-time advice. Like, “Hey, maybe don’t text your ex right now.” We’re already kinda there, but this would crank it to full-on nosy best friend mode. Privacy? Never met her.
Total money management
Imagine never paying a bill again – because your phone just… handles it. Auto-pay on steroids. You’d wake up, sip coffee, and your phone’s already paid rent, canceled your unnecessary subscriptions, and moved your leftover fun money to a taco fund. (Sadly, tacos will cost $100 each by 2036.)
Think it, send it (regret it instantly)
Hands-free texting? Yes, your phone can read your mind. Why type when your iPhone could just know what you’re thinking and send it for you? It’s efficient, sure – but your phone better not leak your inner monologue. Yikes.
It’s emoji showdown time, and there can be only one.
Two contenders are currently battling it out for a spot on your phone’s emoji keyboard: Face with Squinting Eyes vs. Cracking Face. Only one is expected to make the final cut this year, so the question is… which one would you use more?
The Unicode Consortium – a group of very serious people who decide which emojis get added – will pick the eventual winner. It’s like The Emoji Bachelor, and only one face gets the final rose.
Squinting Eyes was originally selected, but now they’re having second thoughts and may replace it with Cracking Face.
Let’s meet the contenders.
Squinting Eyes
It’s giving “Wait, what am I looking at?” or “That can’t be right…”. It could mean you’re confused, suspicious, trying to read tiny print, or just throwing a little side-eye without going full shady. It’s a little redundant with the monocle emoji, but more casual. Kind of like the monocle emoji’s skeptical little brother who doesn’t own a monocle, but does squint at receipts. 🧐
Cracking Face
This one looks like someone dropped it on the floor. It’s meant to symbolize feeling damaged or broken – physically, mentally, or spiritually – but still holding it together. Think: “I’m barely functioning, but I’m here!” They also expect it to get used sarcastically, which feels on-brand.
Which one would you use more?
So, what’s it gonna be? The “I’m not buying it” squint? Or the “mentally shattered, but here for it” cracked face? One is skeptical, the other unhinged – but both are relatable this day and age. (For our money, it seems like Squinting Eyes offers a little more bang for its buck. But it’s hard to argue the average person isn’t feeling somewhat shattered these days.)
It sounds like Cracking Face could be the eventual winner, but you never know which way the top brass at Unicode might go. They’re the same folks who OK’d the Dotted Line Face emoji (🫥) that no one has ever used, so they’re hard to read and don’t always make the obvious choice.
Eight More Emojis We’re Definitely Getting Soon
The rest of the new emojis on the docket seem to be safe and sound on the final list. Here are the other eight we’ll probably be seeing when the update rolls out in early 2027. (Yep, emoji approval is a slow process.)
File this under “2025 problems”: The internet went down, and it broke people’s… beds? The increasingly connected world we all live in is getting weirder by the day.
Thanks to a major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage this week, a bunch of tech-savvy households discovered that their “smart homes” don’t function so well without, you know, the internet. And the standout meltdown came from a company called Eight Sleep.
Smart beds are great… until they’re not
Eight Sleep makes high-end bed frames and mattress covers that do all sorts of fancy things like heating, cooling, and adjusting to different positions – you know, like a hospital bed, but luxury.
That is, until the cloud broke. Then each one became a $2,000 paperweight with a mattress on top.
A mattress company called “Eight Sleep” went offline during the AWS outage yesterday, leaving customers unable to use their beds pic.twitter.com/8ynH0ZkSmE
Because Eight Sleep’s beds rely entirely on cloud computing hosted by AWS, the outage left users completely stuck. If your bed was tilted upright for reading or Netflixing when the servers went kaput, that’s just how you were sleeping that night.
One user posted, “It would be great if my bed wasn’t stuck in an inclined position,” while someone else helpfully quipped, “It’s all fun and games until a hacker folds you into a taco.”
Would be great if my bed wasn’t stuck in an inclined position due to an AWS outage. Cmon now
Some users also reported their mattresses overheating, since the smart temperature system went haywire during the blackout. One guy said his bed was stuck at 9 degrees above room temp and compared it to “sleeping in a sauna.”
Thankfully, the problems were only temporary
The beds eventually came back to life once Amazon sorted things out, and Eight Sleep scrambled to let customers know they were aware it was unacceptable. The company’s CEO promised an “offline mode” was in the works, so if there’s ever another outage (100% chance of that), your bed won’t trap you like it’s auditioning for Saw 12: Sleep Edition.
Or auditioning for a remake of 2013’s “Bad Grandpa”…
Imagine if Clippy from Microsoft Word never went away… and instead became your life coach. That’s basically where we’re at, except Clippy had a glow-up and goes by “ChatGPT.”
And now, there’s a new term for people who rely on it way too much: “Sloppers.”
It’s the latest internet label for folks who ask ChatGPT to help with everything from writing emails to planning their social lives. The term started circulating on TikTok, where someone proudly announced, “A friend coined the word Sloppers for people who use ChatGPT for everything. That’s such a good slur.” (Social media: where insults go to thrive.)
One guy told a story about being on a first date with a Slopper… when the woman pulled out her phone to ask ChatGPT what she should order. Yep, she needed A.I. to choose her dinner. He was so thrown off, there was no second date. Probably a good call.
So why “Slopper”? It’s short for “A.I. slop,” a reference to the flood of weird, robotic, low-effort content generated by artificial intelligence. And it’s not just the content… it’s the idea that some people are letting A.I. do all their thinking for them.
Still, not everyone is sold on “Slopper.” Other nicknames being floated include “Botlicker” (ouch) and “Second-hand thinker” (double ouch). Honestly, they all sound like names your smart refrigerator would call you during an argument.
Of course, we’re still in the early days of this tech revolution, and our collective cringe vocabulary is just getting started. But if you find yourself whispering “Hey ChatGPT” more than you talk to actual humans, maybe take a breath. Step away from the algorithm. Go outside.
Sure, the Fourth of July is rough on your fingers (thanks, fireworks), but it turns out the real casualty might be your phone. And no, we’re not being dramatic… just statistically accurate.
A phone repair company looked at their data and found that July 4th is the single worst day of the year for phone accidents. That means more cracked screens, more soggy devices, and a whole lot of panicked “Find My iPhone” searches. In fact, phone mishaps spike 52% higher on the Fourth than an average day. (Memorial Day and Labor Day are next, but they don’t quite have that same chaotic energy.)
The bigger problem? Summer in general is like a war zone for smartphones.
Water damage cases jump more than 80%
Cracked screens rise 18%
Lost phones soar 66%
(So yes, your phone absolutely dreads summer break.)
If you’d prefer to end the weekend with both your dignity and your device intact, here are a few solid survival tips:
1. Don’t trust that “waterproof” hype. Yes, you heard about someone who fished their phone out of a lake after two months and it still worked. That’s the phone equivalent of a miracle. Yours is more likely to drown in a hot tub full of margarita mix. Bonus fun fact: saltwater and chlorine are even worse for electronics.
2. Put your info on your lock screen. Take a screenshot of your contact details and set it as your wallpaper. It triples your chances of getting your phone back if it goes missing.
3. Fix that cracked screen already. A busted screen makes your phone extra vulnerable to water damage. Even humidity can sneak in through the cracks and cause problems. (Yes, your phone is apparently as high-maintenance as your ex.)
