Lemon Tsupryk Q3 #2: 16 Gigabytes

 I used to have an iPhone 4 in middle school. 

I wouldn't be surprised if you’ve never even held one of those in your hand: quaint little things released a decade and a half ago, the smartphones which have about the same footprint as a computer mouse nonetheless said to have majorly inspired the way iPhones look today through their front-facing cameras and sharp-edged design. 


I miss my dinky little iPhone 4 sometimes. It could fit into any pocket, and it was the perfect size for my small hands. But, well, its small size and near-vintage quality meant it lacked many of the comforts I don’t give a second thought to nowadays. 


Like storage, for instance. My iPhone 4 had 16 gigabytes of storage. 


Sure, that may be thousands of times more than the amount of storage NASA needed to put a man on the moon, but compared to today’s 200 GB phones, it’s atrocious. Borderline unlivable. The iPhone 13 had already been released when I was in seventh grade, and that phone had 64 GB; I was walking around with a matchbox while everyone around me had a suitcase in tow. 


Although, in truth, that’s still the case and always has been, and it has nothing to do with my phone storage. 


People have storage too, in a way—it’s called memory in both phones and humans for a reason. It just so happens that mine is terrible. 


It’s no secret. If you know me in any capacity, you know that my number-one weakness in any school assignment or test is memorization. Heck, I barely remember what I had for dinner the day before, let alone the chemical formula for potassium oxide. Meanwhile everyone around me is recalling all their friends’ birthdays and classmates’ names and all the places they’ve ever been, gliding through the past and present simultaneously with perfect ease. 


Confusing ease. 


Does everyone else’s brain work that differently from mine? Am I missing some integral part, some software update? Am I using an old library archive when everyone else has updated to a server room? 


If my mind is a room then my memories are envelopes filled with photographs stuffed into filing cabinets shoved against the walls, piled on top of each other, some with drawers jammed and others open and spilling. The center of the room is empty and swept regularly, cleared of any stray paper. When I have to recall anything, I have to pry the broom out of my brain’s hands and go rifling through cabinets, more often than not getting stuck unable to find what I am looking for. It is infuriating both for me and those around me who can’t get answers from me to questions as simple as “when did you last do the laundry?” and “where did you go over the summer?” I have a bad memory but can imagine things vividly, which also leads to false memories and dreams leaking into reality, to add insult to injury. 


But, as much as I can complain about it, calling it unlivable is still hyperbole. It’s just something I have to learn to exist with and improve upon. I dealt with having an iPhone 4 for three years so I can deal with my subpar memory, whether it's caused by anxiety or genetics or the lack of some nutrient. 


At the end of the day, you can still store photos and files on an iPhone 4, you just have to be more picky with what you want to remember. And, if something happens to slip from my mind, cut me some slack—there’s only 16 GB of space in there, give or take.


Image: photo taken by me.

Comments

  1. ClaireApril 7, 2026 at 8:58 PM

    16 GB really doesn’t seem like much; it’s a testament to the exponential growth technology has undergone in just a few years. However, a return to “dumb phones” is becoming increasingly more popular. As Gen Z-ers and millennials begin to realize that phone addiction is seriously impacting their ability to live in, well, reality, a collective yearning for simpler times manifests itself in a movement Ned Ludd would be proud of. Combined with the fact that Apple releases updates purposefully degrading current iPhones to make buying a newer model more enticing, it’s no surprise that people are beginning to wean themselves off of newer phones, even if they do have more storage.

    Older, or “vintage” phones are smaller, and have fewer functions, yet they perform exceptionally well for their age. They represent a time when the internet was somewhere to post rather than to be. Even though an iPhone 4 might not have the most storage, it could be considered by some metrics to be more trustworthy than an iPhone 17. Even if it has less memory, it is still perfectly capable of accomplishing complex tasks. Great blog this week!

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