They are lined up one next to the other, Werner B.'s cell phones, and each one has a story.

The Pocky mobile phone with a charging cable for the cigarette lighter, for example, from 1989. B., who is 65 today, got it for an affair with a colleague.

"She hid it in the car and we were able to talk to each other without her husband noticing." Or much later, in 2008, the Nokia 6650, which had a good camera for the time.

B. used it to film the steps in the tango dance class so that he could continue practicing at home.

And then the first iPhone, which he already had in 2007: He will always remember how happy he was that he could carry the device in his breast pocket and then it fell out, hit the paved floor and the screen cracked .

Anna-Sophia Lang

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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People and their telephones - of course, the Museum for Communication in Frankfurt has long known that there is more to this relationship than pure technical history.

But how do you document what cell phones and smartphones mean?

How are they used?

How do they shape everyday life?

Since the Nokia 9000 Communicator, the first internet-enabled mobile phone, came onto the market on August 15, 1996 at the CeBIT trade fair in Hanover, the world has changed radically.

Organize life

This first smartphone combined telephone, SMS, fax, e-mail and an Internet browser in one device. According to statistics, almost 70 million people in Germany today have a smartphone with which they communicate, work, network, organize their lives and listen to music. There are apps for everything now. They count steps, monitor sleep, document the menstrual cycle or demonstrate what one looks like at 85. It is a triumphant advance that is far from over.

To capture this phenomenon, the Museums for Communication in Frankfurt, Berlin and Nuremberg started a project in May.

They called for old cell phones and smartphones to be sent and their stories to be told.

80 people have participated so far.

From Sunday on, the first results can be seen in the digital exhibition “Smartphone.25 - Tell me!” On the Internet.

Werner B., who lives in Bavaria, is one of them.

At the start, Joel Fischer, curator of the exhibition, and his project team worked through its story and two others and presented them as so-called smart stories, that is, told using images, quotes, audio files and other elements.

The second part of the exhibition, in which you can read statistics and other things about everyday life with the smartphone, also includes a number of participatory elements.

Here, the digital visitors themselves can contribute to the research by taking part in surveys or answering questions.

"How does it look on your home screen?

Are there any apps that you never need? ”Is one of the questions, another:“ Could you do without your smartphone and use a dumbphone instead?

Or maybe you have never even owned a smartphone? "

Tell stories

Until the end of the year, participants can still send in devices and tell their stories.

The project team is not only happy about individual cell phones or smartphones, but especially about rows like those of Werner B.

This is the best way to understand how the transformation from a “pocket-sized office” to the “Swiss knife of the information society” - said Museum Director Helmut Gold at the presentation of the exhibition - took place.

Interested parties are welcome to send photos first and thus get in touch with the team.

Every message is answered, says Fischer.

In any case, he is grateful if the devices are sent with a contact address so that there is an opportunity for consultation.

In this way, the exhibition should continue to grow over the next few months.

In 2022, Fischer wants to evaluate everything that has come together - and summarize what he has learned about people's relationship with their smartphones.

The digital exhibition “Smartphone.25 - Tell me!” Can be seen from Sunday, August 15 at smartphone25.museumsstiftung.de.