I have always been wondering if the memory of this phrase is another example of the “Mandela Effect”, like the Monopoly guy’s monocle.
It just sounds so plausible, as it is stylistically the kind of stuff that teachers often say and it fits so well as we all have first hand experience on how fast technology has progressed especially during the 00s.
But on closer scrutiny it just doesn’t make sense.
And it was already pretty obvious to anyone really early that this wouldn’t make sense.
During my middle-school years in the 80s, things like calculator watches already were the hype (had one myself) and widespread enough for school to have to establish rules to cover those.
Shortly after that, I remember credit-card-sized calculators that where intended to be put into your wallet to be common giveaways by banks.
And compact GSM mobile phones started to become increasingly widespread from the mid 90s.
I see only a tiny timespan that the phrase would have perhaps been plausible, maybe just ten or so years spanning from the early 70s to the early 80s.
And I myself am pretty sure that I first heard the claim and the phrase itself in some relatively recent (last 10-15 years) online posts, but never before.
Teachers at my school in the early 00’s were still saying it. One of the better maths teachers would add to it by asking if we really wanted to grow up to be stupid and unable to do such basic sums unaided.
But now take a step back and consider that each of those teachers you vividly remember saying the calculator phrase to you, must have had a mobile phone in their pockets, which at the time had exactly three apps presented prominently on the main screen: a calendar, an alarm clock and a calculator.
So why would they have said such a thing to you?
And still, you have that totally realistic and believable memory of it.
Like I also have the vivid, colourful, and absolutely undeniable realistic memory of the “Fruit of the Loom” logo having featured a cornucopia when we were wearing this brand in school.
I think the calculator remark memory being a Mandela-Effect artifact is not a totally unreasonable thing to suspect…
had a mobile phone in their pockets, which at the time had exactly three apps
At the time I was in school (90s to early 00s), cell phones were for making phone calls. There were no “apps.” There was no texting, no camera, none of that. Smart phones came out the year I graduated high school. Before that, cell phones were not anywhere near as common as they are today. At a certain point, they were even a status symbol. My elementary school teachers definitely didn’t have the money to afford something so fancy in the 90s.
The closest thing I had as a kid was an “electronic organizer” with no phone/internet abilities. That had a calculator and a calendar, but it was more of a novelty and a toy - not something I relied on or would bring to school.
Commenter was referring to its youth in the early 00s, and by that time mobile phones were ubiquitous and thanks to carrier subsidizing also pretty affordable.
The mentioned (preinstalled) app functions already came up during the switch away from simple text based displays in the second half of the 90s (as well as the texting you mentioned).
You are partly right, though, before that time items where more of a “single purpose” type.
But even then, miniaturization and mass-production had already rendered the exact “You won’t have a calculator in your pocket all the time” phrase nonsensical, with everybody typically having lying around several of the free tiny giveaway solar-powered calculators in bags and drawers.
I would guess that the original phrases the potential collective false memory is based upon, were something more like “you won’t be able to use a calculator in every situation”, which then got transmogrified over time by social reinforcement to the plausible sounding and much more exciting “You won’t have a calculator in your pocket all the time” trope.
Eh, “you’re not always going to have your phone on you” was another thing that was said, and plenty of us now have jobs where we can’t have/use a cell phone while working, so it’s turned out to be pretty apt.
I have specific memories of multiple math teachers telling me this from elementary school through high school, in the 90’s and early 00’s. Then I got to college and it was all “how good are you at making computers do all the math for you?” AKA computer science
I have specific memories of multiple math teachers telling me this from elementary school through high school
…and I have specific memories of the Fruit of the Loom stuff we were wearing at school featuring a cornucopia…
Memories are not static and unswayable.
And with some cognitive social feedback the memory transformation from “You will not be able to use calculators in every situation” to the common-identity-establishing “You will not have calculators in your pockets all the time” is a minor one.
That’s exactly the point I am trying to make.
It is a classical candidate for Mandela Effect in action, but other than the sweatshirt logo probably not possible to prove one or the other way, although I have the feeling evidence points somewhat in the direction of a likely “false” memory.
I was in elementary school ins the late 70s and early 80s. Second grade. Mrs. Anderson said it. And it made sense because the calculator at home was the size of a brick and you had to plug it into the wall with a power adapter. And it cost like $800 adjusted for inflation.
I am newgen enough that I was raised shittily with a cell phone that had a calculator on it. It sucked but it was there. And I was doing worst in math. Forgot which grade.
Teacher dropped the line (different language), I went “I literally do have a calculator in my pocket” and pulled out my phone still running an "Are you sure you want to quit?"ed game of checkers with me literally doing random moves without understanding the game and still winning, then she went “well, what if you don’t want to bring it, or forget it at home?”, I dismissed it (but retrospectively she was right), and then I lost the argument with the teacher asking me how I would handle a social interaction with a store cashier.
Hey, before you go start gaslighting strangers that their memories are false (I also remember hearing the phrase in school in the 80s), consider a few things:
First, while calculator watches may have existed, I don’t remember seeing them in my childhood. They weren’t universal.
Second, teachers are adults, kinda set in their ways. Brand-new ‘toys’ aren’t going to change their thinking on a dime. I can very easily believe teachers continuing to use the phrase even after circumstances have changed (see also the other poster mentioning hearing it in the 00s).
Third, the fact that you can “prove” the saying wrong with your arguments doesn’t mean that all of our teachers have thought it through the way you did (and I think all of us have had teachers where the response to this debate would be “Quit talking back! Detention for you, buster!” instead of “Oh, yeah, interesting thought…”).
I never said I could “prove” anything, only that I wonder if it might be a likely product of the Mandela Effect given the circumstances.
I find the whole idea intriguing, and entirely not a bad thing in any way!
On the contrary:
Instead of something impressed on you from outside, it might be an entity-establishing tale a whole generation developed in a collective, subconscious way on their own, a strong joint image to mark their distinctiveness from the previous generation.
If anything, I am jealous because I am not sharing that common experience!
But, hey, at least I still have the “Fruit of the Loom” false memory. Not quite as cool and meaningful as your potential one, but fascinating nonetheless!
I’m hardly 30 and my 2nd grade teacher told us we’d never have calculators in our pockets. I have brought it up with a few friends and most have heard the same!
I have brought it up with a few friends and most have heard the same!
Well, that is not a indication that it is not a false memory, as the thing you describe is core part of how these kind of collective false memories are probably formed, by “social and cognitive reinforcement”:
Scientists suggest that these are examples of false memories shaped by similar cognitive factors’ affecting multiple people and families, such as social and cognitive reinforcement of incorrect memories
I have been e.g. affected by the (known) Mandela Effect false memory of the Fruit-of-the-Loom logo having had a cornucopia.
I have seen the clear evidence that it has not, but I still have the memory, which feels absolutely real.
It is a really strange feeling… No wonder it sparked the idea by some that these kind of false memories are spill-overs from alternate timelines or parallel universes :-)
I love the Mandela effect, or as I like to call it, “white people don’t pay attention to African politics and then made up a whole thing to explain why they thought Nelson Mandela was dead.”
Well, tbf, the fact that they even knew the name “Nelson Mandela” indicates that they paid more attention to it than to basically everything else happening in Africa…
From doing geometry in 12 year old classes in 2002, to algebra in 14 yr classes, our experience never called for offloading the math onto the calculator. Whenever I’m helping my son with math homework I try to ensure pencil on paper is the first step we exhaust before any magical math steps.
It sounds like obvious old man get-off-my-lawn energy, but when I was growing up the kids running games on TI calculators were the ones who were curious and also tutored sufficiently to not have any problems with math.
That was never me, of course. I was too broke and ignorant to have a TI-84 until college, and only used it in one math class.
I have always been wondering if the memory of this phrase is another example of the “Mandela Effect”, like the Monopoly guy’s monocle.
It just sounds so plausible, as it is stylistically the kind of stuff that teachers often say and it fits so well as we all have first hand experience on how fast technology has progressed especially during the 00s.
But on closer scrutiny it just doesn’t make sense.
And it was already pretty obvious to anyone really early that this wouldn’t make sense.
During my middle-school years in the 80s, things like calculator watches already were the hype (had one myself) and widespread enough for school to have to establish rules to cover those.
Shortly after that, I remember credit-card-sized calculators that where intended to be put into your wallet to be common giveaways by banks.
And compact GSM mobile phones started to become increasingly widespread from the mid 90s.
I see only a tiny timespan that the phrase would have perhaps been plausible, maybe just ten or so years spanning from the early 70s to the early 80s.
And I myself am pretty sure that I first heard the claim and the phrase itself in some relatively recent (last 10-15 years) online posts, but never before.
Teachers at my school in the early 00’s were still saying it. One of the better maths teachers would add to it by asking if we really wanted to grow up to be stupid and unable to do such basic sums unaided.
I totally believe you that you have this memory!
But now take a step back and consider that each of those teachers you vividly remember saying the calculator phrase to you, must have had a mobile phone in their pockets, which at the time had exactly three apps presented prominently on the main screen: a calendar, an alarm clock and a calculator.
So why would they have said such a thing to you?
And still, you have that totally realistic and believable memory of it.
Like I also have the vivid, colourful, and absolutely undeniable realistic memory of the “Fruit of the Loom” logo having featured a cornucopia when we were wearing this brand in school.
I think the calculator remark memory being a Mandela-Effect artifact is not a totally unreasonable thing to suspect…
At the time I was in school (90s to early 00s), cell phones were for making phone calls. There were no “apps.” There was no texting, no camera, none of that. Smart phones came out the year I graduated high school. Before that, cell phones were not anywhere near as common as they are today. At a certain point, they were even a status symbol. My elementary school teachers definitely didn’t have the money to afford something so fancy in the 90s.
The closest thing I had as a kid was an “electronic organizer” with no phone/internet abilities. That had a calculator and a calendar, but it was more of a novelty and a toy - not something I relied on or would bring to school.
Commenter was referring to its youth in the early 00s, and by that time mobile phones were ubiquitous and thanks to carrier subsidizing also pretty affordable.
The mentioned (preinstalled) app functions already came up during the switch away from simple text based displays in the second half of the 90s (as well as the texting you mentioned).
You are partly right, though, before that time items where more of a “single purpose” type.
But even then, miniaturization and mass-production had already rendered the exact “You won’t have a calculator in your pocket all the time” phrase nonsensical, with everybody typically having lying around several of the free tiny giveaway solar-powered calculators in bags and drawers.
I would guess that the original phrases the potential collective false memory is based upon, were something more like “you won’t be able to use a calculator in every situation”, which then got transmogrified over time by social reinforcement to the plausible sounding and much more exciting “You won’t have a calculator in your pocket all the time” trope.
That’s a great fucking question! Nevertheless, it happened.
Yes! And my Fruit of the Loom sweatshirts did have a cornucopia on it!
;-)
Eh, “you’re not always going to have your phone on you” was another thing that was said, and plenty of us now have jobs where we can’t have/use a cell phone while working, so it’s turned out to be pretty apt.
I have specific memories of multiple math teachers telling me this from elementary school through high school, in the 90’s and early 00’s. Then I got to college and it was all “how good are you at making computers do all the math for you?” AKA computer science
…and I have specific memories of the Fruit of the Loom stuff we were wearing at school featuring a cornucopia…
Memories are not static and unswayable.
And with some cognitive social feedback the memory transformation from “You will not be able to use calculators in every situation” to the common-identity-establishing “You will not have calculators in your pockets all the time” is a minor one.
That’s exactly the point I am trying to make.
It is a classical candidate for Mandela Effect in action, but other than the sweatshirt logo probably not possible to prove one or the other way, although I have the feeling evidence points somewhat in the direction of a likely “false” memory.
I was in elementary school ins the late 70s and early 80s. Second grade. Mrs. Anderson said it. And it made sense because the calculator at home was the size of a brick and you had to plug it into the wall with a power adapter. And it cost like $800 adjusted for inflation.
I am newgen enough that I was raised shittily with a cell phone that had a calculator on it. It sucked but it was there. And I was doing worst in math. Forgot which grade.
Teacher dropped the line (different language), I went “I literally do have a calculator in my pocket” and pulled out my phone still running an "Are you sure you want to quit?"ed game of checkers with me literally doing random moves without understanding the game and still winning, then she went “well, what if you don’t want to bring it, or forget it at home?”, I dismissed it (but retrospectively she was right), and then I lost the argument with the teacher asking me how I would handle a social interaction with a store cashier.
Hey, before you go start gaslighting strangers that their memories are false (I also remember hearing the phrase in school in the 80s), consider a few things:
First, while calculator watches may have existed, I don’t remember seeing them in my childhood. They weren’t universal.
Second, teachers are adults, kinda set in their ways. Brand-new ‘toys’ aren’t going to change their thinking on a dime. I can very easily believe teachers continuing to use the phrase even after circumstances have changed (see also the other poster mentioning hearing it in the 00s).
Third, the fact that you can “prove” the saying wrong with your arguments doesn’t mean that all of our teachers have thought it through the way you did (and I think all of us have had teachers where the response to this debate would be “Quit talking back! Detention for you, buster!” instead of “Oh, yeah, interesting thought…”).
I never said I could “prove” anything, only that I wonder if it might be a likely product of the Mandela Effect given the circumstances.
I find the whole idea intriguing, and entirely not a bad thing in any way!
On the contrary:
Instead of something impressed on you from outside, it might be an entity-establishing tale a whole generation developed in a collective, subconscious way on their own, a strong joint image to mark their distinctiveness from the previous generation.
If anything, I am jealous because I am not sharing that common experience!
But, hey, at least I still have the “Fruit of the Loom” false memory. Not quite as cool and meaningful as your potential one, but fascinating nonetheless!
I’m hardly 30 and my 2nd grade teacher told us we’d never have calculators in our pockets. I have brought it up with a few friends and most have heard the same!
Well, that is not a indication that it is not a false memory, as the thing you describe is core part of how these kind of collective false memories are probably formed, by “social and cognitive reinforcement”:
I have been e.g. affected by the (known) Mandela Effect false memory of the Fruit-of-the-Loom logo having had a cornucopia.
I have seen the clear evidence that it has not, but I still have the memory, which feels absolutely real.
It is a really strange feeling… No wonder it sparked the idea by some that these kind of false memories are spill-overs from alternate timelines or parallel universes :-)
I love the Mandela effect, or as I like to call it, “white people don’t pay attention to African politics and then made up a whole thing to explain why they thought Nelson Mandela was dead.”
Well, tbf, the fact that they even knew the name “Nelson Mandela” indicates that they paid more attention to it than to basically everything else happening in Africa…
From doing geometry in 12 year old classes in 2002, to algebra in 14 yr classes, our experience never called for offloading the math onto the calculator. Whenever I’m helping my son with math homework I try to ensure pencil on paper is the first step we exhaust before any magical math steps.
It sounds like obvious old man get-off-my-lawn energy, but when I was growing up the kids running games on TI calculators were the ones who were curious and also tutored sufficiently to not have any problems with math.
That was never me, of course. I was too broke and ignorant to have a TI-84 until college, and only used it in one math class.