I always thought this was a bad argument anyway. The point of learning arithmetic was to develop your ability to reason and to learn study skills and habits. A similar argument could be you won't always have a car so you'd better learn to run. But I don't run because I'm worried I won't have transportation. I run/hike to stay fit.
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2026
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Exacty. A calculator is useless if you don’t know how to structure the problem and what and how to calculate it.
Teaching kids to do math without calculators is like teaching people to do carpentry without a measuring tape. It’s slower and less accurate for no real benefit. Before we had calculators, everyone used an abacus or a slide rule. Calculation aids have always been an integral part of math, and knowing how to properly apply them makes you better at math (faster, more accurate, deeper understanding). We literally developed computers in the first place so we could do less mental math because it is so unreliable.
Why does the logic of technology/industry fall apart for calculators? I’ve never understood it. There’s no other field where we perceive “lack of tool use” to be an advantage.
EDIT: It would be like practicing fingerpainting in art class because "you won't always have a brush in your pocket" Hell, why even learn to read when you won't always have a book in your pocket? Better not play basketball in gym class, you won't always have a ball in your pocket! It's just always been a totally goofy attitude. I didn't accept this illogical take as a child and I sure don't accept it now 😂
I was not dreaming about using numpy on the phone for doing compound interest calculations....
Somewhere around 40?
I goated the system. I wore one of those calculator watches.
While we heard it said, and more often the more specific realistic version was that you wouldn’t always have a calculator on the tests through college, there is a few more proper reasons that still apply. Knowing how the equations work, as well as that they exist. You can look them up and will probably build an excel spreadsheet at work but even using AI today it’s vital that you can check the work. It also effects your brain development. If you’re running calculations in your head while doing them by hand it develops parts of your brain and eventually lets you think in math terms. The effort required probably also does a good job of sorting people out of career paths. I don’t want planes flying around me that were “vibe calculated”
I was told that employers wouldnt want me to need to look everything up, which was the argument against open book tests.
Meanwhile, my job is BEGGING me to use Chatgpt instead of my expertise.
They said it to us, even as I'd go home to my father wearing this watch.
I heard this line while wearing this in middle school
Did you keep it in your pockets? didn't think so, teacher was right then, uninstall your root drive now.
I had that watch while teachers told me that.
Don't forget "you need to be good at math if you want to work with computers."
Logic, or understanding math.
They told us that for nursing school then it was all middle school level ratio and proportion (admittedly with multiple ratio steps like when you've ratioed the right volume of the dose but then you need to convert that to the gtt of your drip kit). The only real equations needed were three (maybe I'm forgetting one) that you could just memorize for the week then forget again until next semester. Two were °F to °C / °C to °F with one inverted ratio +/- the constant. The other one was BSA with two variables but you don't have to solve for one or the other they're both just measurements you get from the patient and plug in.
...but then you realize that the only acceptable score on that test is a 100% (some programs will drop you if you get anything less than a 100% on the drug dose test after two tries) and that what nursing school is actually looking for is both accuracy and precision. You're doing a relatively basic but fundamentally logical, and more importantly highly repetitive puzzle 25 times in a row in an hour and if you make even one error you fail. I had to create a whole specific mental technique to beat my ADHD into submission enough to 100% that test (honestly half of what nursing school taught me was ultimately ADHD / attention management techniques, which it turns out is actually also most of being a nurse). Like the EMR does basically all of the math these days but being aware of where my attention is and why and how to nudge it where it needs to be has been suuuper useful.
Edit: BMI! That was the equation I was forgetting about. Weirdly it's mostly useful in population health but also if you're under a certain BMI on admission the EMR starts suggesting a diet consult every time I open that chart until I either document a reason to permanently override it or just put in the consult so that the dietician can immediately decide whether or not to start loading them full of protein shakes. Really important for the seniors if they go into the hospital with 0 chub they're probably not coming back out alive.
I run into less and less F these days, thank god. Worst conversion factor ever.
Hmm... I think it was something like, "you need to be good at math if you want to be a computer programmer", and in some ways that remains true.
I mean, you don't need to be good at your times tables to learn javascript, but there are lots of transferable skills.
I'm playing around with some Geospatial data stuff presently, and the math involved is about as complex as it gets, but you don't really need to do the math just playing around with the data.
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Interestingly, this phrase was really only plausibly used for about 33 years - the time between the first fully electronic calculator and the first smartphone.
Mechanical calculators have been around since the 1700’s and widespread since the 1920’s, though. And before that we had the abacus and slide rule. Mental math has never been a flex, lol
Nope, even the earliest mobile phones have had calculators built in (talking about commercially available mobile phones here, nor the suitcase sized monstrosities of the 80s).
Even dumb phones had a calculator. Maybe around 1999 you should have stopped talking about calculators.
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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.
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.
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!
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...
So why would they have said such a thing to you?
That’s a great fucking question! Nevertheless, it happened.
Nevertheless, it happened.
Yes! And my Fruit of the Loom sweatshirts did have a cornucopia on it!
;-)
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 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.
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'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.
It's unnecessary now anyway... In 2026, it seems math education is having a Renaissance, but meanwhile kids can barely read.
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