From Talking… to “Hear My Instagram”

Have you ever looked around and realized we don’t actually talk anymore? Like, as a society? We’ve downgraded communication so many times that it’s basically on clearance. We went from real conversations to whatever this 2026 nonsense is, and honestly, I want a refund.

We’re surrounded by messages, but real conversation feels like it’s disappearing. I’m sitting there thinking about how we used to talk to people in person, how we used to call a house phone, and how asking for someone’s number took actual courage. Then I watch a young guy at the mall work up the nerve to approach a girl, and instead of “Can I get your number?” he goes straight to “Can I get your Instagram?” That one moment says a lot about where communication is headed.

We unpack what this shift means for dating, friendships, and everyday life. From self-checkout kiosks to social media apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook, the world keeps removing tiny chances to practice face-to-face communication skills. I share a nineties throwback about trying to remember a phone number, and why that awkward little ritual built confidence and made connections feel real. Then I go to the best source for modern rules: my teenage daughter, who explains why people don’t hand out phone numbers anymore and how DMs became the new first step.

This is not a rant against technology. Digital communication helps us stay connected across distances and gives people more control over privacy. But if we only communicate through feeds, stories, and indirect messages, we start losing the warmth of a voice, the meaning of eye contact, and the courage it takes to be present. If you’ve ever wanted a “refund on communication,” you’ll leave with a simple challenge you can try today.

Subscribe for more real talk, share this with a friend who still prefers a phone call, and leave a review with your take: are phone numbers outdated, or are we just avoiding real conversation?

Family, friends, frenemies, pull up. This is your invitation to laugh, reflect, and speak your truth. No edits. No filters. Just grown-folk conversation. New episodes every week. Your comments shape the show. #unscriptedafter40 

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Transcript

Welcome Back And A Big Question

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Okay. Working out, it's doing great. But my body hurts. Hopefully, the yoga will get me where I need to be at because I think I got 10's elbow, and I'm pretty sure I played 10 before a long time ago. You should only have 10's elbow if you play tennis. And that's a rule. But okay, let me get started. Welcome to another episode of Unstripted After 40, the podcast. Um, when did talking go from, you know, in person, talking people, pretty much like I'm talking to you, like you're looking at a video, or if you was a person. Um, well, you are people, but like if I had a person actually in front of me, you know, talking. When did that go to like, give me your Instagram? You know, talking to here's my Instagram. I remember you just walk up to somebody and legitimately say, hey, can I get your number? Okay, but let me read my monologue that I prepare for y'all. That's why I got my glasses on, let me see. Have you ever looked around and realized we don't actually talk anymore? Like, as society, as society, right? We have downgraded communication so many times to basically it's on clearance. That is 100% true. We have gone from real conversations to whatever this is in 2020 six nonsense is honestly. I yeah, I want to refund. That that's pretty much that I want to refund. We used to talk to people and you know, have basic conversations with them. I I guess that's an old person thing. And that's one of the things that me as an observer, as this,

Nineties Dating And Memorizing Numbers

SPEAKER_00 2:05

as I navigate through my 40s and realize that things that I used to do or want to teach my kids now, or even teach any young person D days, I have to adjust and get different. And and let me go by, let me start by telling this story, okay? So um, about a couple weeks ago, I was out and I was observing, you know, being nosy. That's why I should, that that's basically what it is. I was just being nosy. Um, and I saw these two young people talking, right? And it reminded me of when I was a young man, and I walked up to a girl the first time and asked her her number. And I guess I can remember, because see, back when I was growing up in the 90s, you actually had to remember someone's number. And that was a hard task for me, especially back then. My memory, my memory bad now, my memory bad then. So it was an extremely hard task to remember somebody's number. And I want to make sure I remember her number, because I can say I like this girl. So, like I say, I'm gonna give you some rough dates. Uh, I guess back by the 93. Okay. I should have been about 13 then, okay, 93. Um, and I remember her name. I'm gonna say her name because we still actually talk and I don't want no problem with her husband. He's big these days. Um, but anyway, I remember getting the courage, walking up to her, and saying, Hey, I like you. I think you're cute, and I'm hoping that I can call you sometime, Kino. And I don't know what Josie back then, but you know, I'm thinking Josie Man, can I call you sometime, you know? And I thought I was smooth. You couldn't tell me I wasn't smooth, because I had like the cutoff jeans with the plain white T, you know, and the fresh Nikes. And I was walking to her to get that number, get those seven digits, like they called. So she looked out to me and she said, okay, you can call me at my house. Because that's pretty much what you can call anybody. He had cell phones back then, you just call them at the house. You got to look at a house phone that was on the wall, or you know, the one that was you had to pick up and answer. They like physically put to your ear with a cord to it, like a cord phone. Cordless phones, if you had a callless phone back then, your parents had some money. We didn't have no cordless phones, so but we had a phone, that's all that counted, right? And it was on the wall and had a little plug. I remember sitting down on the wall, talking to her on the phone. But anyway, I asked her for her number. She told me her number, and when she told it to me, all I had to do is remember the last four. That's literally all I had to remember the last four. And at the time when I asked her, I was so nervous, asking her number, I really wasn't paying attention to the numbers that come in her mouth. I was just literally gazing into her freaking eyes like a dummy, like, aww, instead of actually listening to what she told me. And when I saw her the next day at school, she said, Why didn't you call me? And I said, Look here, I'm sorry. Um I got the number switched up. Can you give it to me again? And at this time I had a pencil and a pen, you know, because a pencil and a pen, or what they say a little black book back then was a thing to have. You got to have book, paper, paper thing. So like the day of age of, you know, finding numbers in your man's pocket is over. Just look at his phone. So that's a little pro tip for you women that I don't trust your men. But if you're the man you don't trust, just leave him alone. But anyway, I'll ramp up and talk about this thing, right? So communication basically has gotten to a point where we don't really communicate with each other in 2026. You know, so back in the 90s, like I said, I used to actually go and have to talk to people and ask their numbers, which I love. Like, I think even on the gas station yesterday, they got this little kiosk. You know, you just put your little things there and it reads the price or reads the thing and it tells you how much it's supposed to cost. I miss actually walking to the cash register and talking to the angry cash register person or waiting in line to just get my stuff checked out. Because every place went to the little digital things. Walmart, um Tajay, um, all the grocery stores, like let's say Bilo, Pigwigly, anyone you think, they all got little automatic things now. So we really don't talk to people no more. We don't communicate like we used to back in the day. But going back to when I was saying that I was being nosy, and I remember when I first asked a girl for a phone number, like I said, I was excited to actually witness the point in time this young man that reminds me of myself, had the opportunity and the courage to walk up to this young lady and ask her for her phone number. Because as

The Mall Moment That Fell Flat

SPEAKER_00 7:15

a man myself, back in the day, remembering that time, hey, it takes a lot of balls to walk up to a girl the first time, especially like her and things. So I'm sitting back, uh um, I'm in the mall, and I'm I'm eating. I'm eating something I'm not supposed to be eating because I'm working out, but I'm not gonna tell you what that is, but we're gonna let that go. Um and I'm just observing, and it was exciting to see that. He walked up to the girl. You see, he was a little nervous because he had his hands, he rubbed his hands together, he he turned around and looked like he was practicing on his line that he had to say to her, because the line he was gonna give her had to be killer, because he he looked like he was practicing on it and he got in steps. So he walked up to her and he had his phone out, and I thought that, you know, he's gonna handle a phone and say, hey, can I get your number? But it didn't went like that. Apparently. It went horribly wrong. Um, not well, not wrong, but not like I thought it was gonna actually pan out. So he talked to her, you know. He he swerved side to side, like it's like you tell a little nervous swerve. And when he asked her, you know, she started to giggle, like, you know, whatever he said, the line worked, you know, and she was smiling from cheek to cheek and stuff like that. And and I could overhear their conversation, and he said, Hey, you know, can I get your Instagram? And I'm like, hold up. I'm pretty sure he posted asked for her number. But apparently, he asked her for her Instagram. So I was a little confused, you know, why would he ask her for her Instagram, you know? Um, but that's what he did. So um, all the excitement at that point kind of left me. I'm like, he ain't even do it right. I actually wanted to walk over there and stop him and give him a little lesson. Hey man, this is how you walk up to the girls and talk to them, you know. But he wasn't my child, so I didn't approach, but I was a little disappointed. So I waited and see if another person will do the same thing, you know, some other young man. Because, you know, in the mall, back when I was growing up in the 90s, the mall was the place to go to holler at girls, you know. Girls came there to get seen, guys went there to go see the girls. So I don't know if that's still the thing. Like I said, because I really don't go to the mall that much. Only I went to the mall yesterday or this past week, whenever I went. Let's say I already told you my memory bad. I went to um look at a piece of clothing in the actual mall that I saw online to make sure it looks like what I saw online, because as y'all all know, you'll buy something online, then when it comes in person, totally look different. But um, I waited maybe about another 20 minutes, because like I said, I was eating and just to see, I saw other people talking, but I really couldn't overhear the conversation started, so I really didn't get no good data. So I'm gonna have to get some data out there and see if there's a thing. So I

A Teen Explains The Instagram Swap

SPEAKER_00 10:20

did the next best thing. I came home and talked to my, you know, teenage daughter, you know, she's 17, so she she knows what's going on. And she explained to me that, dad, um, people don't give out numbers no more. They give out their Instagram handle. I'm like, so what? They're sliding their DMs, and once again, I've been corrected. My daughter said, you can't say sliding DMs. She said, Dad, that's nasty. I I didn't know that was a thing that was nasty. I think because I heard it on TV. I want to be cool. Okay, I just want to be cool. Sliding your DMs is a thing, right? But I guess it's not one of those things you say. And apparently it is not, because when I went to work and started talking about it, they all corrected me. So I I worked with a bunch of young people and they all told me I was wrong. I need to fix my vocabulary or say it different, but I didn't know. So, but you can't send them a DM, okay? And that means direct message, okay? That's what it means. I think. Yeah. Direct message. Yeah, okay, direct message, whatever. So um, but yeah, that's what we asked for. So my but go back to my daughter, she explained to me. She said, Yeah, they don't ask for numbers no more. Either they ask for their DM or you get their Instagram or they or for y'all old people, you know, y'all Facebook. I said, okay, you know what? F you. Um, and I'm not that old. But why not a phone number? She said, people just don't like giving up their phone numbers no more. You know, people communicate more over the social media apps like Snapchat and Instagram and Facebook and I guess Twitch, some other things like that. I don't know if it's X or Twitter. I know it's still a thing, but I don't know if young people use it. I know I use it because I'm old. But um, but yeah, so pretty much we downgraded from actually talking to people on the phone to actually DM them or getting their Instagram out. So we don't even know numbers no more. They have stole the pleasure of walking up to a person and asking them for their seven digits. You can't even use the line no more. You know, all these songs that they wrote about back in the 90s that they still can use now, um, that are classics, they took that away from the young generation. We cannot communicate there. We have downgraded communication, and we have to do better. We we just have to do better. I I don't know what it is, you know. When I remember when texting came out, and and texting is great, you know. I I I'm an avid texture, so I can't bash on it too bad. But I do like to, you know, pick up the phone and call people sometimes and actually hear their voice or talk to them in person, say that that would be a great thing. So I I guess we we just don't no more. So the go back to what I was talking about earlier, the joy for a male and the joy for a female, I would think, you know, because as that male walking up to that female, nervous, palm sweaty, trying not to stutter when we talk to the female, and that female having some male like gorgeous like myself walking up to them and asking them for their number used to be a ritual that I would thought both people would, you know, if they're if she likes him and he like her, would be inciting to talk to them. But as I realize, you know, people don't talk no more. In

Refund On Communication And A Challenge

SPEAKER_00 14:05

2026, communication is a dying form. Well, physical communication. Because all this other communication, they'd be great. Um, I understand. People don't talk to each other no more. They don't call. And now apparently they stop texting. All they do is I don't even think they DM no more. Um, like I say, you just hear them from the Instagram or you just watch the Instagram Ripple story or Facebook story. We don't communicate face to face. We are just passing by the board, okay? So I'm gonna tell you, I'm not gonna ask somebody for the Instagram. Um if you see me out there, I'm gonna ask you for your number. Um, I'm John asked for your Instagram. So, and then if I see you in person, I'm gonna just come talk to you in person. I can actually physically come talk to you in person. I am. Because like I said, calling someone in another state, got it. Got it. Okay. But we we have to do better. We we have to do better. I don't know what it is right now. Um I want I want a refund on communication. That that's that's permanently. I want a refund. So I encourage you all out there to go, if you can, physically talk to someone. And then if you haven't asked someone for their number in a while, and then have the painsaaking thing to actually remember it. Because I know you want to just pull out your phone, just tighten number, or with the, I know that with the Apple thing, we bump, we bump and swing numbers, you know, and stage numbers and stuff. So bring back the joy of communication and actually physically talking to someone this week, this month, this year. We cannot go backwards in communication. That that the 90s was great. I love the 90s because in the 90s we actually taught the people and physically, you know, had interaction. Interaction with a human being is awesome. Most of the time. Most of the time. I'm not gonna say all the time, most of the time. So, until next time, go out there and physically talk somebody. Don't let communication down your watch.