As were many consumer electronics, radios, walkmans, calculators, landline phones, etc.
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Get your own shower thought, dude.
Jk
I will add, of all the things, alarm clocks seem like they deserved it the least. They did one thing and they were fine at it.
Fine is the right term for this. The alarm clocks were not great, not terrible. They were just fine.
You couldn't adjust the sound volume or the sound they make. In the later years of alarm clocks, you did have some fancy lamp-radio-alarm-hybrid devices that did have some settings. However, they were woefully inadequate for my needs, so I was stuck with a solution that was nothing more than fine.
Enter mobile phones and their ability to play any mp3 file. My life changed! I made a custom sound that starts gently instead of jumping straight to the RUN OR DIE -stage we've sadly grown accustomed to in the past decades. IMO a mobile phone alarm is orders of magnitude superior to any alarm clock I've ever seen.
I fucking love alarm clocks. Why? My phone used to be the very first and the very last thing I touch every day. As soon as I unlock my phone, it becomes hard to not get distracted and do other stuff on it. Now, I can have phoneless mornings and evenings.
Good idea. What sound do you use, just out of curiosity?
Over the years I've had a bunch of different gentle alarm sounds. Most of them were nature sounds I edited myself. For example, once I had an owl sound that started from zero volume, but ramped up very gradually.
However, now that I use an iPhone, it hasn't been very easy to do that. Making a custom ringtone is just stupidly convoluted, and making a custom alarm seems to be completely impossible. I need to look into that, because I really miss my great alarm sounds. The default sounds are all trash.
I remember adding some back in the day, and to this day, they are still available even though I switched from the iPhone 7 I had to the 13. I know you have to do it through iTunes, but that is all that I remember. :(
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I've had an iHome alarm clock at my bedside since 2005. It has a dock for an iPod and a utility plug for other audio devices. Many other brands of alarm clock have utility plugs for audio input as well. Phone different? Yes. Superior? No.
They did one thing and they were fine at it.
so were radios, calculators, landline phones etc
You right. I don't need to argue. I will elaborate, if that's OK.
So radios:
I love the old am/fms super neat. Come in all shapes and sizes. By the time I was oldenough, though, they had "boom boxes". Boom box wanted to give you speakers that you could blast through the house, CD tray, cassette player, cassette recorder, microphone jack. I'm more then happy to trade in the boom box for a phone and set of Bluetooth headphones.
Calculators:
The times you need a calculator you don't have one. If you did, it was garbage. No one's packing a ti-87 all day everyday. Not to say there wasn't really nice pocket calculators, just i never got much use out of them.
Landline:
Miss them. Have memories of using my grandparents rotary phone. Just, by the time I was old enough, no point in having two phones. At least for me.
I'm not looking to argue either, I'm just trying to share how I see things, so this feels more like a discussion to me.
I mean yeah, I don't think anyone can argue against the convenience of modern technology. I just think we'd be fine without smartphones.
Instead of a boom box or a radio (which weren't really meant to be portable anyways) you could use an mp3 player, by now they'd probably have Bluetooth as well.
I know some people who carry around dedicated calculators despite having a smartphone, so I think if you need it somewhat regularly, you'd just have it with you. And if you don't have it with you, your calculations are probably not that important and urgent, so you could do them at home if necessary.
Regarding landlines, there's barely any situation where I feel the need to contact someone right in that moment, so a landline with a voicemail would be fine most of the time.
Long story short, all I'm trying to say is that smartphones have replaced a lot of things that were fine, not just alarm clocks, and I don't see why they 'deserved it the least'. I do understand that I can't expect a shower thought to go that deep though.
No, like I said to start. You're right. Thanks for sharing your perspective with me.
Thank you for doing the same :)
About a year ago I got one of those alarm clocks that slowly light up to simulate the sun rise, and that's been a game changer. I wake up so much easier and feel less groggy when I do.
Highly recommend
Also highly recommend gradual nature sound alarm sounds like birds and stuff. Wake up way less grumpy.
me and the rest of the ADHD gang keeping the alarm clock market on life support because a phone alarm is too easy to turn off in your sleep:
Plus keeping the phone far from bed is always a good idea.
I can't sleep with an alarm clock because my ADHD causes me to always want to look at the time if it's in immediate view
have you tried blocking the view of the clock with a Mountain of Pillows™?
maybe worth a shot, but I feel like I would impulsively "need" to look still, and end up looking over the Mountain o' Pillows
fair, fair
i wish you whatever your equivalent of Pillow Mountain is that helps you find sleep success! :]
Warning: alarm may not be audible when it inevitably slips under pillows or between mattress and wall.
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I keep my phone on the opposite side of the room so I can’t turn off the alarm without getting out of bed.
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The Smartphone Wars, when Nokia bombardments were a daily reality! Rough times...
That's also how the alarm clocks were wiped out! It was a massacre...
I'm just thankful we were able to negotiate peace. Though, we could have done better the data plan.
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My dad is still using his same one from the ~~70s~~ 80s as far as i know. Yeah you know the one.
MREET! MREET! MREET! MREET!
The analog one with 2 bells that never keeps accurate time? Or the horizontal one with the radio and the flappy, rolodex-shaped parts that display the time?
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I have a Sony Dream Machine CD clock radio. I can wake up to CD's. It's pretty cool. I hope it lasts forever.
Narriator: It broke the next day.
I would actually cry
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You know what I miss? Answering Machines.
I'm tired of voice mail. I want my "voice mail" to live ON the phone and be provided by an app.
I don't see why this couldn't be done with an app.... though I'm not an app developer... So what do I know.
Modern voicemail isn't done on device like it was with an answering machine. Instead of your machine picking up, your telecom provider does, so you're no longer actually receiving a call, they are. Theoretically you could have it pick up a ring before your telecom does, but then you'd have 2 mailboxes and if you're offline the call would go to your provider's box.
This is even the case for landlines nowadays. I had to setup a new phone for a lady and Comcast was snagging the call before her machine would. Had to change it to pickup before they did.
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I have that clock that projects the time onto the ceiling. It's the best!
Me too. Just got it recently. I thought it would be a gimmick and maybe it is. But I love it.
It's so nice to wake up in the night, barely open one eye, and know what time it is. Once you get used to it, you'll miss it when you travel. My FIL had a small folding travel one.
I just got a new alarm clock and haven't used my phone since. It's a bit unreliable, doesnt have a snooze function, and the sound is a shrill cry, but I love her anyway.
All I want is a reliable alarm clock that isnt a fucking app or sony’s bizarre “dream machine” that can’t fucking keep time.
I have an alarm clock / noise machine combo and I love it. I prefer a phone-free bedroom to reduce distraction opportunities. I also completely agree that phone wake-up sounds are just far too aggressive. All it takes for me to wake up is having it change from “brown noise” to “ocean waves” and I’m awake immediately.
This is true. Looking more broadly there's a bunch of industries that have been affected by smart phones.
Here's just some of the devices you no longer need thanks to I-phone / Androids:
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I have never trusted my cell phone as an alarm due to my anxiety of if I set the volume correctly or not. I'm rocking my Sony Dream Machine that's got to be over 20 years old now. Works perfectly, would recommend.
Nice =)
The one alarm clock I'll never forget was my brother's promo Surge alarm clock. It would just scream "SURGE" when it went off.
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I wish I would have kept my Garfield alarm clock. "Nahhhhh, don't get up, sleep longer". Hated getting up, but loved that thing.
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I had a pay-as-you-go Nokia from an overseas trip that was perfect as a nonfunctional phone/alarm clock when I got home because it announced the time. Hit snooze at 8am and next alarm it’d say “the time is 8:10” and then do the noise.
I never stopped having an alarm clock. It stopped being the alarm but remained the bedroom clock.
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