On this day in 2019 I noted how my phone did a number of things.

Even now I am dictating this document to my iPhone 6 using Google Docs. As I write this on the iPhone 6, the blue screen of TV+PlayStation 4 is inviting me to look at it. It wants me to

• Stream music or video

• Play a disc or digital video game

• Play a DVD or BluRay, developed by a consortium of executives in electronic and entertainment firms

I use my phone for many more things:

• An alarm to wake me up in the morning

• A news source (Hollywood, Politics, Tech usually)

• Stream video (on too many platforms)

• Play Ballz or Tetris or Candy Crush

• NJTransit tickets, NY MTA, LA Tap, Airports

• Credit cards

• Music and podcasts

• Books and audiobooks

• Calls and or texts

I remember my Armitron electronic watch, G-Shocks were a thing for a while as were “I love Boobies” bracelets. “Drawer devices.”

I even vaguely remember 2004 or 2005, Ms. Dorflinger, my third grade teacher, criticizing me for writing an essay about how much I missed playing MegaMan on my GameBoy: “that’s not sad!”

Screw you, Ms. Dorflinger! MegaMan was and still is inspiring. Now in 2023 we have ChatGPT and AI fears aplenty.

Moral of this story for moms with sons or husbands: video game firms, and casino game firms, are often the same, like Konami.

In fact, Nintendo was a firm that used to make Hanafuda cards before technology.

Playing cards, books, are themselves are technology, replaced by Kindle and Gameboy.

Or iPhone, or Samsung, or Sony. These are multinational firms that billions use.

So, YOUR content should be available across all devices, Reader.

You can put it on a website you own and run, or a social platform you have no control over.

Or even in a book, which I still consider a useful “device” in 2023.

Here is the author holding three books like hanafuda cards.

ACTION POINT: Remember all the “drawer devices” iPhone replaced