In yet another sign of the analog communication tree falling in the forest of the digital landscape, companies are beginning to say goodbye to the one-time mainstay of finding people: the White Pages.
A regular item found in furniture drawers in homes across America, as well as a tool of the curious, stalkers, pranksters, private investigators and neophyte reporters who were not yet well-sourced, the white pages are already facing Verizon’s chopping block in states like New York, Florida and Pennsylvania.
Phone companies are simply saying people would rather point and click their way to a phone number or information rather search the pages and small print data contained in the local phone books. “Anybody who doesn’t have access to some kind of online way to look things up now is probably too old to be able to read the print in the white pages anyway,” Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University pop culture professor jokingly told the Associated Press.
Among the other reasons phone companies are giving for seeking to move away from distributing White Pages to their customers include the environmental impact, increasing reliance on mobile phones which store frequently used numbers, and a larger amount of online listings.
Dallas-based Super Media Inc., which publishes Verizon’s white pages had a Gallup survey conducted which revealed between 2005 and 2008 the percentage of homes that rely on the nearly obsolete books dropped from 25% to 11%.
But some folks still do have a use for the white pages, as evidenced by Kirsten S., a commenter on an NPR message board: When my 15 year old dog tweaked his back last week, I used our phone books to raise his food dishes to a more comfortable eating level. I think that’s the first time I’ve used the phone books in a couple of years.