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Last call for the phone booth?

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Re: Last call for the phone booth?

#11

Post by unimpressive »

I'm not sure exactly how long it will be before pay phones are gone completely, but their density has been decreasing for nearly two decades now:

1998 - http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/articles/1998/12/paypho...

2002 - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/cyberspace/requiem_for_the_pay_pho...

2008 - http://www.phonelosers.org/2008/09/pay-phones-are-doomed/

2010 - http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/gadgets-electronics/questions/...

2010 - http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/02/pay.phones.irpt/

2011 - http://www.phonelosers.org/2011/04/alternative-uses-for-pay-...

2017 - https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/objec... (Some are even ready to say they're already dead.)

From the perspective of computer history, pay phones are interesting because of their being the main host for phreaking subcultures. The best book on such is still probably Lapsley's Exploding The Phone:

http://explodingthephone.com/

Re: Last call for the phone booth?

#12

Post by LeoPanthera »

plttn wrote: post #5
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to be dismissive until it happens to you. A friend was playing with her sister's kid and went "brrring! brrring!" to imitate a telephone call. The kid put her hand up to her ear, completely flat, and said "Hello?" (The old way to play telephone is to answer it by putting your pinkie to your mouth and your thumb to your ear. But of course, phones haven't been shaped like that in a long time.)

Anecdotally, in addition, kids don't really understand the meaning of "hanging up" a phone anymore, they just hit the red button.

I had to explain to a ~16 year old why it was called "dialing".

Re: Last call for the phone booth?

#13

Post by TheGRS »

I'm just going to take a moment to say that Sunday Morning on CBS has been one of my favorite news programs since...well as long as I've been watching television. It was usually on before we went to church in the morning when I was a kid, I'd catch one every now and then in high school, and I later would put it on my DVR because I tended to sleep through the early morning slot in college. I'm actually super excited to learn that they host segments on their website and I think I know what I'll be binging on this week. Also super glad Mo Rocca is still with them, it really entertained me that they hired him after his tenure with The Daily Show (he was one of my favorite correspondents) and he's put out some great segments on the show since. Alright, trip down Nostalgia Lane over.

Re: Last call for the phone booth?

#14

Post by vidarh »

lacampbell wrote: post #2

“I walked past this phone booth every day with my kid when he was three years old,” Ackerman said. “And at a certain point, he said to me, ‘Why is that phone in a box?’ And I realized that he didn’t know what a phone booth was, which is so bizarre!” I am constantly amazed at peoples lack of awareness of time. Of course a 3 year old in 2017 wouldn't know what the hell a phone booth was. How could that possibly surpris…

People are surprised because we don't go around constantly thinking through the consequences of every change around us, because most of the time they are not important. Of course it is not that suprising once we've thought about it.

The point is that this is one of those little things most people won't have thought about, not least because most adults are still blind to phone booths: It's part of the landscape to us, and not something we're likely to think much about when we pass them.

Re: Last call for the phone booth?

#15

Post by DashRattlesnake »

cbanek wrote: post #7

Can't help but be reminded of The Adventures of Pete & Pete - The Call. All revolves around a payphone out in the middle of nowhere.

> revolves around a payphone out in the middle of nowhere

It was a real thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_phone_booth

Re: Last call for the phone booth?

#16

Post by sbov »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #12
plttn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, in addition, kids don't really understand the meaning of "hanging up" a phone anymore, they just hit the red button.

I had to explain to a ~16 year old why it was called "dialing".

My parents didn't get rid of their rotary phone until the late 90s. Growing up, I always found it funny when my friends didn't know how to use it

Re: Last call for the phone booth?

#17

Post by kaishiro »

TheGRS wrote: post #13

I'm just going to take a moment to say that Sunday Morning on CBS has been one of my favorite news programs since...well as long as I've been watching television. It was usually on before we went to church in the morning when I was a kid, I'd catch one every now and then in high school, and I later would put it on my DVR because I tended to sleep through the early morning slot in college. I'm actually super excited t…

You're not alone, and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy that you feel this way.

I travel a lot for work - currently in Melbourne - and while this will probably sound absurd, the most poignant reminder that I'm not back home is that I can't watch CBS Sunday Morning with coffee and the Boston Globe on Sunday Morning. In my later years of college, and through my early professional life, that was simply what we did on Sunday. When it was over, it was only 10:30 and we could still go do brunch or have a day somewhere, but 9 - 10:30 was scheduled time in our apartment. And god help you if you spoke during the 'moment of nature' at the end of the show...

Re: Last call for the phone booth?

#19

Post by daniel_iversen »

In Australia the leading telco is making all the phone booths (at least in sydney where I live) into wifi hotspots for its internet customers - clever - pay for your home internet and have wifi wherever you are - maybe nice in areas where there is not good mobile reception, for mobile workers etc

Re: Last call for the phone booth?

#20

Post by suihkulokki »

In 90's Finland took a steep dive in an index describing how technically advanced a country is. Turns out, amount of telephone booths per capita was in important part of the index. As the country was already transforming to mobile phones, it was the index that had become outdated.
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