The Phone Book is Dead
on 12.23.07, 08:05pm in life • Comments (6)
When I came home on Friday there was a giant bag sitting on my driveway - Verizon had performed their annual ritual and dropped off the latest multi-thousand page yellow and white pages.
This year was different though. Usually I just bring them in, recycle last years edition, and toss them into a space in a draw or at the top of the closet so they’d gather dust until next year. Rinse and repeat in 12 months. This year, the new ones went straight into recycling. What a waste of paper.
Can you seriously remember the last time you actually looked at a white or yellow pages to find something? It’s so 1990. Some day these volumes will be in a museum where my kids will laugh at them, and laugh at me for using them.
Michael brought up a good point - I wonder if there is a way to just ‘opt-out’ of getting these. The Yellow Pages are just one of the casualties of today’s online world.
So it goes.
Family Member (December 24, 2007 @ 7:22 am)
Recently I went on vacation and while in the hotel room I had no Internet access and my AT&T-based cellular communication device was unable to pick up a signal. Lucky for me, next to the Gideon Bible was a Yellow Pages. I was able to thumb to the coffee section and find a plethora of Starbucks establishments to partake in the morning ritual of coffee consumption.
Long live the Yellow Pages! This is clearly needed when the digital age dies and you simply need a great analog way of finding information.
Generally, complete agree when you are in a wired location or a place with EDGE, 2.5G, 3G or whatever, you can simply use your iPhone, Blackberry and a simple Google query to find what you need.
The other piece of dead paper is the set of World Book Encyclopedias that sit on bookshelves of so many people. When was the last time you thought about buying a complete A-Z set of Encyclopedias? Or when was the last time you wanted to go and buy a Dictionary?
smakofs (December 24, 2007 @ 7:42 am)
Really? You just couldn’t ask the front desk at the hotel where the nearest starbucks is? Where, I might add, you’d be easily able to jump on wifi….
Family Member (December 24, 2007 @ 5:53 pm)
No.
That would require effort. Either picking up the phone or going down the elevator to the lobby.
smakofs (December 24, 2007 @ 6:08 pm)
I’d think picking up the phone would burn less calories than flipping through the yellow pages.
Randy (December 25, 2007 @ 8:32 am)
You only get one set? I get Verizon and Dex both - and I go from the driveway - or the front porch - and go straight to the blue bin. I haven’t used one since moving out of CT in ‘04
Raymond (December 26, 2007 @ 9:49 am)
Yes, you can opt out: http://blogs.msdn.com/46875.aspx
Some phone book companies are more competent than others at honoring the opt-out.