Falak Bilal
Srinagar, Sep 30: There was a time when leaving home meant leaving the world of communication behind.
No WhatsApp message told parents where a child was. No live location showed where friends had gone. No camera was waiting to record an ordinary afternoon.
For a generation of Kashmiris now in their late twenties, thirties and forties, this was simply childhood.
“We would leave home after breakfast and return before it became too late,” recalls a Srinagar resident in his thirties. “Our parents knew the neighbourhood where we played, but they could not call us every few minutes. We were simply expected to come home.”
Today, that world has almost disappeared. Smartphones have become part of everyday life, particularly among young people. The 2024 Annual Status of Education Report found that 93.7 per cent of children aged 14-16 in Jammu and Kashmir had a smartphone at home, while 83.9 per cent said they could use one. Among those able to use smartphones, 73.8 per cent reported using social media during the survey period.
But for those who grew up without smartphones, the biggest change is not the technology itself. It is the disappearance of being unreachable.
Before smartphones, meeting a friend required an actual plan. Children agreed on a place and time and then turned up. If someone was late, there was no message asking, “Where are you?”
“You had to trust that your friend would come,” says a former college student from south Kashmir. “If they didn’t, you waited for a while and went home. There was no group chat to find out what happened.”
Friendships were built around neighbourhoods, schools and playgrounds.
A knock on the door could be an invitation to play cricket. A walk to a friend’s house could become an entire evening.
Being bored was common, but there was no screen waiting to solve it.
Children played outdoors, read books, visited relatives or simply sat together and talked.
“We had no phone to pick up when we were bored,” says a Srinagar woman in her thirties. “During power cuts, we talked, played games and sometimes just sat quietly. Those ordinary evenings are some of my strongest memories.”
Smartphones have brought undeniable advantages. Young people can access educational material, communicate instantly, navigate unfamiliar places and remain connected to people living far away.
But they have also changed what happens when there is nothing to do.
The pre-smartphone generation has another unusual distinction: much of its childhood was never recorded digitally.
There were fewer photographs and almost no videos of ordinary days.
A school picnic might survive in a handful of printed photographs. A childhood friendship may exist only in someone’s memory.
“Today, children can look back at hundreds of photographs from when they were small,” says a former teacher. “We mostly remember our childhood because we lived it, not because somebody recorded everything.”
Smartphones have transformed parenting as much as childhood. Parents can now call their children instantly and, through some services, know where they are.
That can provide reassurance, but it can also create an expectation that children should always be available.
“When I was young, my parents simply waited for me to return,” says a parent from Srinagar. “Now, if my child does not answer the phone, I immediately start wondering what happened.”
The phone has made children easier to reach, but it has also made constant communication seem normal.
Those who grew up before smartphones now occupy an unusual position.
They remember waiting for news, but they now receive it instantly.
They remember landline calls, but carry a camera, map, library and communication device in their pockets.
“We are probably the last generation that remembers both lives,” says a Srinagar resident. “We know what it was like to spend an entire day without a phone, but we also know that life has changed and there is no going completely back.”
For today’s children, smartphones are not a technological revolution. They are simply part of growing up.
For their parents and older siblings, however, the smartphone is something they remember arriving.
And perhaps that is what makes their memories different. There was once a childhood without notifications, blue ticks or constant updates. A childhood where a friend simply appeared at the gate and called out: “Come, let’s go.”
