JIHEE (MARIE) PARK
<Staff Writer>
Apart from the other news stories and the week of gloomy weather Sandy has presented us, her sweep across the continent has presented us with a unique question. In New York, residents whose power and cell phone reception went down had to rely on public pay phones to make important calls to keep in touch about their whereabouts and status.
In this year of 2012, it can be unanimously accepted that many of our past technologies are obsolete, with phone booths being one of them. A CBC report stated that payphones in Ontario and Quebec would have to raise fees to $1 per call in order to continue a sustainable business. Otherwise, removal of payphones will continue, as is the trend in many public areas in the recent decade, reflecting the public’s increasing dependence on the convenience and efficiency of cell phones and other forms of communication technologies.
The question here: despite their decline due to replacement by improved technologies, is it a good idea to simply dismiss their disappearance as natural happenstance?
Technologies such as the telephone booth came into existence as a response to needs of the public. Methods of communication are essential for civilized society; the particular media society utilizes for these ends depend on the means available in its day. People needed a means to communicate with specific contacts when on the move, and improvements in technology gave rise to the pay phone.
It makes sense that as newer technologies come into existence previous ones fall into disuse. But is it wise to completely let them disappear? What guarantee is there that in every circumstance these newer technologies will not fail us? When they do, what will we do in the absence of a back-up? In this sense, the status of the pay phone in our public spaces should be given some serious attention and consideration, especially regarding their potential necessity in emergency circumstances.
So it becomes a matter of interest to investigate some of the peculiar ways that technologies are becoming obsolete today. Perhaps these too should deserve at least a glancing look for their potential usefulness in the case that the ‘new’ fails us.
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Personal Digital Assistants: Replaced by the multi-tasking handsets such as Blackberries, and now smartphones. Palm Pilots may have been a brief fad with a limited user market.
Blockbuster and HMV: The age of the movie-rental night-in is a species near extinction. Oh the memories of walking down the aisles of shelves to physically pick a movie to watch! Eventually, even DVD machines themselves will be history. Netflix and other online providers have now become the norm.
Maps: Now this one is a bit more disconcerting; map reading has always historically been an essential basic skill that any competent adult needed to know. Now, with the pinpoint reliability of GPS, we no longer read maps. We are told how to get from point A to point B with such detail that one could practically do it blindfolded. In fact, who knows what’ll happen in the near future? Cars may be programmed to be able to drive for you.
Landlines: Pay phones are one thing, but it may be that landlines are also soon to meet their demise. With subscriptions to cell phones becoming the standard, the home phone is falling into severe disuse. Do you know anyone who still has a home phone? Along these lines, the phonebook would soon become something of an antique of the past.
Dial-up service: Remember when your online access had to compete with the phone line? The demise of this one may not be mourned in any circumstance at all.
Fax: Faxing can be a chore; a task that would take you a couple minutes to do via e-mail would take maybe half an hour to do by fax. And then there’s the issue of not knowing if it got through at all.
Buttons: Even such a basic concept of ‘buttons’ may become obsolete, with the popularity of touch-screens spreading to every fathomable technological device.
Give it some thought. Are these things really historical curiosities, or have we been too quick to dismiss them?
(Source: BusinessInsider.com)