What did we do before (_______)?

Someone very close to me recently posed the question 'What did we do before (_______)?'  Humans seem to be wired to constantly strive to build better tools, going from sharpened stones and petroglyphs on cave walls, to lasers and smart phones in the matter of a few thousand years.  Barely enough time for the universe to blink. 

What we did before (_______) was that we had realistic expectations based on the world as it was at that moment.  Waiting for letters to come in the mail because this was the only way to send written messages person to person.  If you were not home when someone called, they had to keep trying until you were home because mobile phones and voicemail did not exist.  Examples too numerous to list if you look at the whole of human history.

What did we do?

The more pressing question is what would we do if these things ever went away?