The impact of technology on our lives is felt in all corners — and that was no more apparent than recently, when I was asked about the workings of a pay phone.

Our middle daughter opened this conversation. Headed for boot camp after she joined the Army Reserves, she knew she was entering a time when all digital devices would be taken away. Her only way to communicate would be through letters and a once-a-week phone call on a land line.

“We have to make collect calls,” she explained “Do they tell you how to do it?”

I was momentarily stumped, even though I had grown up with land lines, pay phones and even a party line when I was really young. Yes, I thought, I used to make collect calls occasionally … didn’t I? Don’t you just pick up the receiver and dial “O” for the   operator? Used to be that easy. Then you gave the operator a phone number and hoped that whoever answered the phone would agree to pay for the call.

(Oh, and party lines: For those too young to remember, that meant you might have a neighbor sharing your phone line. I remember as a child I was mesmerized by how you could pick up the phone receiver and suddenly hear people talking. My mom put an end to my 5-year-old audio voyeurism when she suddenly realized what I was doing and, worse yet, realized I was joining the conversations.)

Pay phones led to another conversation: The importance of writing letters over the next 10 weeks. Since our daughter’s access to a phone was limited to a few minutes each week, she urged us to write her as often as we could.

I was on more familiar ground here. It made me think of my parents, whose correspondence during World War II was so voluminous that their letters filled a big box stored in our basement.

I wonder, though, how many letters would someone 100 years from now find? Our almost manic adherence to all things digital has left paper — all kinds of paper — behind. I use very few printed checks and pay bills online; I use digital calendars and even make my grocery list on a phone app.

So I wonder: How will anyone know we were here? How many emails have you saved for posterity? I have visions of archeologists, slowly digging on a bare piece of land, suddenly uncovering small little bug-looking things that once were called — well, what were they, those things grandma used to talk about?

Oh yes: Thumb drives.

I am sure there are those who have total faith that everything we transfer to digital files will be kept forever. I have a journalist’s heart — full of cynicism — and don’t necessarily trust that the system we have 100 years from now will necessarily be able to access those things we recorded a century earlier.

I ponder this as I pick up my smart phone and check my photo gallery — with its 500 images, some dating back about three years.

Hmm. I really have to get those off my phone.

Some day.