WHEN OUR HANDS KNEW MORE THAN OUR PHONES.
WHEN OUR HANDS KNEW MORE THAN OUR PHONES.
When Analog Had a Pulse and Digital Learned to Tap.
A Kāteb Shunnar Exclusive Reflection.
There was a time when our hands knew more than our phones. Matter fact, there was a time when the phone didn't know nothing. It just sat there in the house attached to the wall wit' that long curly cord stretched halfway across the room because somebody was trying to have a private conversation in a house where privacy did not exist. You'd be whispering, twisting that cord 'round ya finger, thinking you slick, and somebody's mama would holler from three rooms away, “Who you on dat phone wit'?” Now, you might've been thinking, None of ya business, but you ain't say that out loud unless you had already made peace wit' meeting the Creator early.
See, I'm from that in-between generation. I remember when the world was analog enough that you had to put your hands on life, but I've lived long enough to watch life become digital enough that now all you gotta do is put one finger on a screen. We went from hands-on to finger-on, from turning knobs to tapping icons, from knowing how to get somewhere to asking a lil' electronic voice where the hell we at. We went from waiting patiently to staring at a loading circle for six seconds talking 'bout, “Come onnnn!” Six seconds! We used to wait six to eight weeks for something to come in the mail. Now if a website takes too long to load, we act like civilization done collapsed.
And don't let the Wi-Fi go out. Baby, you wanna see a modern family come together? Let that router stop blinking. Everybody will emerge from their separate rooms like survivors after a hurricane asking, “Yours working?” “Nah, you restart it?” “I thought YOU restarted it.” Looka there family communication restored. Technology done brought the whole household together simply by going out.
But New Orleans taught me 'bout another kind of connection. Growing up here, outside wasn't somewhere we went. Outside was where life was. The street was our social network, the porch was the comment section, the corner was Google, and Miss Whoever sitting behind dem curtains was surveillance technology. She knew everything: who came home, who ain't come home, whose daughter got dropped off, whose son was s'posed to be at work, and whose car had been parked 'round the corner three nights in a row. Ring ain't invented nothing. New Orleans had neighborhood surveillance long before somebody put a camera inside a doorbell. We called it nosey neighbors, and baby, their batteries neva died.
As children, we ran these streets not like foolish, but free. We raced each other down sidewalks, played football in the street, and played basketball on makeshift goals that leaned so crooked you had to shoot according to local physics. You couldn't learn that shot in no gym because dat rim had personality. Shoot from the left, the ball might bounce off somebody's Buick. Shoot from the right, somebody hollering, “Watch my car, nah!” We played curb ball and tetherball. Girls jumped rope, played jacks, hopscotch, volleyball and hand games. Somebody was sitting between somebody's knees getting their hair done. Somebody had music playing, somebody was dancing, and somebody else couldn't dance but apparently nobody had informed 'em yet. Didn't matter. We were together. There wasn't no group chat, usernames or followers. If you wanted to follow somebody, you got on ya bike.
And when that New Orleans heat got disrespectful, sometimes an older man in the neighborhood would turn that fire hydrant on. Maaaan, listen, you couldn't tell us nothing. That was Six Flags to us. Water shooting everywhere, children running barefoot, somebody slipping, somebody's mama fussing because they got their good clothes wet after specifically being told not to, and somebody's lil' cousin crying for absolutely no identifiable reason. Admission was free, parking was wherever ya bike fell, concessions meant going inside for a cup of Kool-Aid, and the VIP section was somebody's porch. Dem was some good times, ya heard me.
And yes, I used to knock on people's doors and run. Don't judge me, 'cause some of y'all did worse. I am just extremely grateful Ring cameras weren't 'round back den because apparently the Creator knew I needed a statute of limitations on my childhood foolishness. Children today can't even properly misbehave anonymously. Poor babies got cameras everywhere: doorbells recording, cars recording, phones recording, and somebody's auntie recording from across the street. We had something this generation may neva fully understand plausible deniability. You could say, “Wasn't me,” and unless Miss Nosey from down the block saw ya, the investigation was basically over.
The men in the neighborhood would be outside too, wit' the hood up on somebody's car, toolbox open and grease on their hands. Usually one man was actually working and four otha men were standing 'round telling him what he was doing wrong. Every block had dat one fella who could stand twenty feet away and announce, “That's ya carburetor.” Man, you ain't even walked ova here! “I can hear it.” That was our diagnostic computer. Then another one would take a sip of his cold beer and say, “Nah, sound electrical to me.” Now we got two experts, and neither one holding a wrench.
But somewhere inside all that joking and carrying on, knowledge was being passed 'round. Children watched grown folks fix things. Somebody handed you a flashlight, somebody told you to hold dis, somebody asked you to grab a wrench, and you better bring the right wrench too. You come back wit' the wrong tool and grown folks looked at you like you had dishonored the entire family bloodline. “Boy! I said the otha one.” Well hell, dey all silver! But eventually you learned. That's what I mean when I say we were hands-on people. Knowledge wasn't always downloaded; sometimes it was handed down.
My Granny could sew. She could take fabric, thread, needle, measurements and patience and turn it into something. She did embroidery by hand too. Her fingers knew things no computer had to tell 'em. Nowadays you can upload an image, select a design, press a button and watch the machine go brrrrrrrrrrrr until it's done. And look, I ain't mad at the machine. That machine ain't did nothing to me, and what it can do is impressive. But sometimes I look at modern convenience and think, Lawd, pretty soon talent gon' be an optional accessory. Why learn the stitch when the machine stitches? Why learn directions when GPS directs? Why remember numbers when Contacts remembers? Why cook when an app can have somebody standing at ya door holding jambalaya in twenty-seven minutes? Why repair something when another one can arrive tomorrow morning? Why know anything when something in ya pocket can know it for you?
That's the question that bothers me, because technology itself ain't bad. Dependency is a whole 'notha conversation. Take cooking. Now I'm from New Orleans, so I'm fixin' to say something that might start an argument: everybody who prepares food ain't cooking. Some people are fixin' a meal, and dere's a difference, cher. Cooking is when that onion, bell pepper and celery hit the pot and the smell starts walking through the house before you do. Cooking is when somebody in another room hollers, “Whatcha cooking in dere?” Cooking is when you ask Granny how much seasoning she put in and she says, “Enough.” Enough? Granny, is dat a teaspoon, tablespoon or cup? “Just put enough.” That's Louisiana measurement: a lil' bit, some, enough, till it look right, till it smell right. Baby, dem measurements done fed generations.
Cooking is standing ova that pot, stirring, tasting and adjusting. Cooking is knowing that roux done went from “not ready” to “watch it” to “baby, don't you move from dat stove.” Anybody from down here knows a roux will wait until you turn ya back for three seconds to answer the phone, then burn itself outta pure spite. Roux got attitude. Fixin' a meal is something else. Baby, if you peel the plastic back, stir halfway through and microwave for another two minutes, you ain't cook dat. You warmed up somebody else's decision. Don't get mad at me; I'm just the messenger. And please don't invite me ova bragging, “I made lasagna,” then I see the cardboard box sticking out the trash. No, dear. Stouffer's made dat lasagna. You provided electricity.
But this instant world done trained us that everything should happen now: food now, entertainment now, answers now, packages now, relationships now and success now. We don't even wanna watch a whole movie sometimes; gimme the sixty-second clip. We don't wanna read the whole story; gimme the summary. We don't wanna learn the skill; show me the shortcut. We got information at our fingertips, but patience done packed its bags and moved somewhere outside the service area.
I remember when remembering a phone number was a survival skill, especially a girl's number. Oh, ya brain worked different back den. A girl could tell you seven digits one time and suddenly you had photographic memory. I remember meeting a girl at Lake Forest Mall and getting her number. I couldn't just hand her my phone and say, “Put yourself in dere.” Ain't no Contacts, ain't no AirDrop and ain't no QR code. She told me the number, and I had to remember it. I walked through dat mall repeating those digits in my head like the fate of New Orleans depended on me. Don't talk to me, don't ask me nothing, don't distract me because I am carrying sensitive information.
I got home, dialed it and got the wrong number. Lawd! Somewhere between Lake Forest Mall and home, dem last three digits apparently got into an argument and switched seats. Now a sensible person would've accepted the loss, but young Kāteb wasn't no sensible person. Nah, I became a mathematician. For weeks I tried combinations, switched digits 'round and called again. Wrong number. Another combination, another wrong number. At some point whoever kept answering probably thought I was stalking 'em. Months later, I finally figured the number out. Victory! I called, and she was unavailable. See how life used to teach patience? And disappointment too mostly disappointment. But I remembered dat number, didn't I?
School was another adventure altogether. When somebody told us to write a research paper, you couldn't go home, type the question into a search bar and have half the planet's knowledge appear before ya fingers. Nah, you had to go to the library, and not virtually. Ya whole physical body had to report for duty. We had encyclopedias, card catalogs, reference books, educational videos and microfilm. Good Lawd, I just said microfilm. I'm fixin' to stop talking before somebody carbon-date me.
And the Dewey Decimal System! We had to know dat thing. Young people hear “Dewey Decimal” now and probably think that's a rapper from Gentilly. Then after finding the information, we had to type the paper on a typewriter. A typewriter was an unforgiving machine. Today's computer sees you misspell something and politely puts a lil' red line under it. The typewriter basically told you, “You knew what you was doing when you hit dat key. Live wit' it.” There wasn't no Undo, Ctrl-Z or autosave. You mess up bad enough? Congratulations, you starting dat page ova. That's probably why our generation learned curse words so early.
But all that work did something. It exercised the mind, trained patience, made us search, made us remember and made our hands and brains cooperate. Today information comes faster, and that's beautiful. I ain't trying to drag nobody back into a library basement to fight wit' microfilm just for character development. But having access to everything ain't the same as understanding anything. That's a difference we betta remember.
There's an old New Orleans story nobody ever told me because I made it up myself, and I call it The Lantern Man of Bayou St. John. They say there once was an old man who lived not too far from the water. Everybody called him Papa Roux because his skin was dark as a roux right before it reached perfection, and because, according to him, “Anything worth having oughta take a lil' time.” Papa Roux carried an old kerosene lantern everywhere he went, and his grandson hated dat lantern. “Paw-Paw, we got electric lights now,” the boy would say. Papa Roux kept walking. “Paw-Paw, ain't nobody carrying dem old things no mo'.” Papa Roux kept walking. Finally the boy asked, “Why you keep carrying yesterday?” Papa Roux stopped, looked at him and smiled. “'Cause yesterday know some things tomorrow ain't had to learn yet.”
One evening a hard Louisiana storm rolled in. Wind bent the trees, rain slapped the windows and thunder shook the house until the electricity went out. The grandson grabbed his fancy rechargeable light, bright as noon, and for a while everything was fine. Then it dimmed, dimmed some mo' and finally died. “Paw-Paw?” the boy called. From the darkness came the scratch of a match. A lil' flame appeared, and Papa Roux touched it to the lantern wick until the room began to glow. The boy stared at him, and Papa Roux leaned back and said, “Ain't it funny how yesterday get invited back when tomorrow lose power?”
But here's the important part. The next morning Papa Roux didn't throw the boy's electric light away. He helped him recharge it, then taught him how to trim a wick, fill a lantern and strike a match. The boy asked, “Why I need to know both?” Papa Roux smiled and told him, “'Cause progress oughta add something to ya, baby. It shouldn't take everything else away.” That's where I stand. I'm not against this digital world. Hell, I'm living in it too. I appreciate GPS because New Orleans streets will humble anybody. We got streets changing names while you're still driving on the same concrete. You can be on one street, cross an intersection and apparently enter another identity. Only New Orleans, baby.
I appreciate being able to communicate instantly. I appreciate digital libraries, online banking, cameras, medical technology and computers all of it. But this digital world got another trick up its sleeve: illusion. Baby, nowadays I don't always know what I'm looking at. You see somebody's picture online and dey look twenty-three, smooth skin, perfect teeth, eyes glowing, waist snatched, standing in Bali. Then you run into 'em at Rouses buying Blue Plate mayonnaise and hot sausage. You looking, dey looking, you looking again. “Kātib!” I'm sorry, do I know you? “It's me!” No, baby. The person I follow online ain't got no pores. You got pores. Something done happened here. Now I need facial recognition just to recognize people I already know.
Pictures can be altered, voices can be copied, videos can be generated, reviews can be fake and followers can be fake. People can manufacture entire lives on a screen. The house rented, car borrowed, vacation background generated, body filtered, smile edited, relationship miserable, and the caption still says, “Living my best life.” Child, even the sunset confused. And don't get me wrong, people lied in the analog days too. Technology ain't invent lying. Human beings been handling dat department quite successfully for thousands of years. Digital technology just gave lying better graphics and unlimited storage.
That's why I keep coming back to dem old neighborhoods: porches, cards slapping against folding tables, dominoes cracking, children running, cars being repaired, women doing hair, somebody sewing, somebody cooking, somebody hollering from one porch to another, somebody passing a plate ova the fence, and somebody telling you something you ain't even ask to know. New Orleans was analog social media before social media existed. Miss Louella on the porch was Facebook, the barber shop was Twitter, the beauty shop was a podcast, the corner store was Google, the neighborhood elder was Wikipedia, and the second line was viral content. Only difference was you had to physically be dere.
Maybe that's what I miss most: being there. Not documenting being there, posting 'bout being there, checking in, livestreaming or watching somebody else experience it. Just being there. We have thousands of photographs now, but sometimes fewer memories attached to 'em because we were busy making sho' we captured the moment instead of letting the moment capture us.
That's the strange trade we made. We traded remembering numbers for Contacts, knowing streets for GPS, fixing things for replacing 'em, handwritten letters for instant messages, waiting for photographs to develop for taking forty-seven pictures trying to find one where everybody's chin look right, front porches for timelines, and knocking on the door for texting, “I'm outside.” Baby, get out dat car and knock. Well, maybe text first because this is 2026. I ain't trying to get nobody hurt proving a literary point.
But perhaps the greatest difference between analog and digital ain't the technology. It's participation. The analog world required you to participate in ya own life. Ya hands had assignments, ya memory had responsibilities and ya patience had a job. You had to know some things, figure some things out, wait for some things, mess some things up and try some things again. The digital world removed a lotta friction and thank goodness for some of it but friction is also how we learned.
So maybe the answer ain't going backward. I don't want yesterday back exactly as it was because yesterday had problems too. I'm not giving up air conditioning, GPS or online bill pay just to prove I'm authentic. Let's not get ridiculous, nah. The answer might be carrying some analog wisdom into this digital future. Use GPS, but know how to get home. Save numbers, but memorize the important ones. Use the microwave, but learn how to cook something that got ancestors in it. Use artificial intelligence, but don't let ya own intelligence collect dust. Let machines make things, but keep making something wit' ya hands. Take pictures, but every now and den leave the phone in ya pocket and let ya eyes be the camera. Talk online, but sit on a porch wit' somebody too. Let children use technology, but send 'em outside sometimes and let boredom introduce 'em to imagination.
Because boredom gave us games, scarcity gave us creativity, waiting taught patience, mistakes taught problem-solving, and community taught us that sometimes the thing you needed wasn't an app. It was somebody. Maybe Papa Roux was right. Progress should add something to us. It shouldn't quietly subtract everything that made us capable.
So I'm not asking anybody to choose between analog and digital. I'm asking us not to become so digital that our hands forget who dey used to be. Before the touchscreen, these hands touched life. They built, repaired, cooked, planted, wrote, sewed and held. They pointed the way, shook hands, wiped tears, shuffled cards, braided hair, passed down recipes, turned pages, threw footballs down New Orleans streets and held flashlights underneath car hoods. And yeah, sometimes these same hands knocked on somebody's door and belonged to a lil' boy running away from the door he had just knocked on.
Yeah, dat last one was me, and thank the Creator there wasn't no Ring camera, 'cause some memories deserve to stay analog.
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