Watching The Last Dance these past five weeks, it’s been easy and fun to think about the differences between the sports journalism of 1991, or 1998, and the sports journalism of 2020.

The most obvious difference is the lack of social media. Social media — Twitter for journalists, Instagram for the athletes — has revolutionized so many parts of the media world. Can you imagine what Twitter would look like the day Michael Jordan announced his retirement? The day he announced his return? Scottie Pippen’s refusal to enter that playoff game? The whole 1998 season? Melissa Isaacson, who covered the Bulls for the Chicago Tribune, pointed out on a recent episode of The Other 51 that Dennis Rodman’s trip to Las Vegas in the middle of that 1997-98 season on Twitter would be a sight to behold.

All of this is true. But watching the footage from the 1990s, something else jumped out a me.

The lack of phones.

From reporters.

From fans.

From the players.

This was the pre-smartphone era. The Blackberry hadn’t even been invented yet (that came in 1999). The digital world we live in was in its very nascent stages, and the mobile world we live in now felt like science fiction.

It’s notable from a journalist perspective, of course. You see so many notebooks and small digital recorders instead of phones being used to record everything. Even in the episodes where a media frenzy is described (Episode 6, for example), it feels far less intense than anything happening now. This isn’t a value judgement — it’s not better or worse now, it’s just different.

In my mind, the two go hand-in-hand. Yes, social media is a powerful force in media, but a big reason for that is the smartphone. Think of how much less valuable Twitter would be if you could only use it on a computer? By the same toke, the smartphone didn’t become ubiquitous or meaningful to most people until social media platforms were connected to them.

It’s notable from a fan perspective, too. This was the last era when what fans wanted from famous people was an autograph, not a selfie. It’s jarring to see the huge groups of people around Jordan and the Bulls — whether it is a huge media scrum or a group of fans — and not see everyone holding up a phone. Isaacson pointed out how athletes spend so much of their time looking at the backs of other people’s cameras.

Social media has changed sports journalism. Smartphones have changed sports journalism.

The combination of the two, working in tandem, has had the most profound impact.