Pocket Power: The History of Smartphones

Bedtime History: Inspirational Stories for Kids and Families

Bedtime History

Education, Kids & Family, Stories For Kids, Education For Kids

4.4 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Phones weren’t always smart! In this episode, we’ll talk about how phones changed over time, starting with big, heavy ones that could only make calls. We’ll learn how they got smaller, faster, and smarter, turning into the smartphones we use today. We’ll talk about cool inventions like touchscreens, apps, and how phones became like tiny computers in our pockets. Plus, we’ll imagine what phones might look like in the future!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Close your eyes and imagine that you want to talk to your friend and tell them something funny that happened.
0:05.5	What would you do? You would probably grab a phone and call them or maybe text them. But what would
0:11.3	you do if you couldn't call or text them? It may be hard to imagine, but there used to be a time
0:16.5	when we didn't have phones in our pockets to be able to call our friends easily. Phones have come a long way from Alexander Graham Bell and the first phone
0:24.4	to the phones we all recognize. Let's dive into the history of smartphones.
0:30.5	Alexander Bell was born in Scotland on March 3, 1847. That was a long time ago.
0:37.2	His mother was deaf, and his father was a teacher who helped teach
0:40.7	others who were deaf how to speak clearly. Alexander went to school when he was 11, but he had a hard
0:46.9	time and didn't graduate. But he was smart and he still was able to get into the University College London
0:52.9	when his family moved to London.
0:55.8	He was 19. He decided he wanted to be a teacher, like his father, teaching those who were deaf.
1:02.7	His family moved to Canada, but Alexander decided to become a teacher in Boston, Massachusetts.
1:09.0	He fell in love with Mabel Hubbard, the daughter of Gardner Hubbard,
1:12.8	who founded one of the schools where Alexander taught. She was also deaf, like his mother.
1:18.5	Alexander was also interested in the telegraph system and wondered how it could be made better.
1:24.1	A telegraph was the way people would talk over long distances quickly by sending special
1:29.3	beeps across long wires. Each letter had its own special set of beeps, and the person
1:35.1	getting the message had to make sure to listen carefully so they didn't miss any beeps. He found
1:41.3	ways to send more than one message on each line, but he really wanted to find a way to send a voice across the wires instead of just beeps.
1:49.5	He worked hard and made his first attempt at a telephone.
1:53.1	He called his assistant on March 10, 1876 with the words, Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.
2:00.9	Alexander kept working until he had a version of the telephone that he could show people.
	...

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