Monday, July 16, 2007

Phone books: does anyone actually use them anymore?

How many phone books end up getting recycled (one hopes that's what's happening to them) immediately, without ever even getting cracked open?

In my apartment building lobby, there is a stack of new phone books. Each sits in its own plastic wrapper. So far, the stack appears to be untouched. I'm assuming the vast majority of my fellow apartment dwellers use the Internet to look up phone numbers...so most of the phone books are wholly unnecessary. It was a complete waste to print them and package them.

I wish there were an opt-out program for phone books. What do you think? Do you use physical phone books anymore? If so ... why?

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8 comments:

Unknown said...

I used the phone book the other day in an attempt to find a golf course that wasn't booked solid. Funny thing was, a particular golf course popped to mind and it wasn't listed in the phone book. I opt for the opting out option.

Political Realm said...

I hadn't really thought about this before, but you're right. There's a stack of them by the door to my building and I picked one up, but I don't think I've used it. I pretty much use online sources only.

Jonathan said...

Interesting, thanks for sharing, you two.

Anyone out there who actually uses phone books? Curious to hear from you...

Unknown said...

I do use the phone book quite often. I feel its easier to look something up there then to have to mess with the computer to find a number!

Jonathan said...

Thanks, crazedmama. I knew there must be some phone book users out there somewhere! :)

Nat said...

The phone book is so dead. The last time I tried to use one I gave up. I can't remember what I was looking for but it wasn't under the 2 or 3 obvious categories. Waste of paper and ad dollars in my opinion.

Stan said...

I still use it, usually to look
up for a particular country's access
code.
Here, we renew the phone book twice
a year. We usually put the old one
out to the re-cycle bin.
This one is great...
I was in a hotel in a foreign country named
"Cxxxx" for a week last year. A 4-5
star rated hotel btw. No toilet
paper roll in the loo but a couple of old phone books hanged in there ! I ended up having to go out and
bought some rolls. Real story.
Can you believe that !
SChee

scribblefan said...

I just called up the three companies that dump phone books on my doorstep and removed myself from their lists. Let's see if it actually works. If you receive any of these, here are the direct lines if you want to remove yourself as well:

Yellow Book - 1-800-YB-YELLOW
Verizon (Idearc Media) - 1-800-888-8448
Dex (Qwest) - 1-800-422-8793