Gen Z Guest’s Unexpected Find at Hotel Sparks Shock and Self-Reflection Among Older Visitors

Ever stumbled upon something in your hotel room that made you stop dead in your tracks, wondering if you accidentally wandered into a museum exhibit? Well, a Gen Z traveler did just that when they encountered an object so puzzling it left the internet feeling collectively ancient. In an age where kids are glued to phones, Snapchat streaks, and vaping, some relics of the past—like landline phones—might as well be mythical creatures. Remember the thrill of calling your friends on a home phone just to ask if they could come out and play? Yeah, me too. Now, the very thing that once sparked endless pre-teen planning has become a confounding mystery for the younger generation. So, what exactly was this baffling item that had folks reminiscing and chuckling about days gone by? Dive in to discover how a simple hotel socket sparked an unexpected time warp. LEARN MORE

A Gen Z hotel guest has left people ‘feeling older than ever’ after a discovery in their room left them confused.

Getting older is something that happens to all of us, but given how technology has advanced in the last 30 years, it’s difficult to not feel a disparity with the youth of today.

Kids these days seem obsessed with phones, snapchat streaks and vaping, but even as little as 20 years ago, most of us were swapping Match Attax or playing our own versions of knock-a-door-run.

Naturally we all get nostalgic about things used to be when we were young, especially when those things are no longer around, whether it be the Galaxy Truffle chocolate in Celebrations or your old Tamagotchi.

While I might be technically considered to be Gen Z, I certainly remember the days of ringing my school friends on their home phone to see if they could come out and play, but this is pretty much a thing of the past these days.

And it seems as if the concept of a landline phone is lost on a lot of us, as it was that which which left this particular Gen Z guest baffled recently.

The object left the hotel guest baffled (Reddit)

Posting a picture on Reddit, the UK traveller revealed that they’d spotted the socket in a French hotel but confessed that they had no idea what it was.

They wrote: “I’m British and travel fairly extensively, particularly on the continent, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these before.

“It almost looks like the sort of thing that you slide a security chain into – but it’s nowhere near the door or windows.”

Fortunately, the people in the comments were quick to help the original poster realise that it was in fact a landline phone socket.

One said: “That’s a phone socket for house phones. Not sure what the word is in English. Landline phone?’

If you think landlines are strange, imagine a dial-up one (getty stock)

Another joked: “I’m feeling older every day… That was the socket used to plug landline telephones. Welcome to the 20th century.”

Others pointed out that it was making them feel particularly old as staples of our youth are now seen as relics by the younger generations.

“Damn, that’s hitting the getting old target really hard,” one user wrote.

For those of you in your 30s who think that this classifies you as officially old now, don’t worry, a scientific study has identified that you’ve got a while to wait until you officially earn that title.