More Evidence That Yellow Books are Dying

New York Magazine came up with a list of 16 once-common items that were made obsolete in the 2000s. Most are pretty accurate (when’s the last time you licked a stamp?) but some were a bit premature, I think. Fax machines, smoking in bars and incadescent light bulbs still have years to go before I’d call them ‘obsolete’. The one that really stuck out to me was phone books at number 12. I’m not surprised, but I thought maybe that my family was a little more progressive than the normal family. We haven’t used a phone book in years.

I heard this list on the radio earlier this morning, and the DJs had much the same sentiments that I expressed last week. They even mentioned that they used the phone books to start fires and as doorstops.

Here’s the full list:

#1.) Answering machines

#2.) Lickable stamps

#3.) Foldable maps

#4.) Cathode ray tube TVs

#5.) Incandescent light bulbs

#6.) Paying for pornography

#7.) Smoking in bars

#8.) Fax machines

#9.) Hydrox cookies

#10.) Cassette tapes

#11.) Floppy disks

#12.) Phone books

#13.) Polaroid photos

#14.) Bank deposit slips

#15.) Subway tokens

#16.) The Rolodex

New York Magazine

Related posts:

1. They Finally Took the Phone Books Away
2. The Yellow Pages – Who Wants Those Things?
3. The Burger Bar at Lumiere Place in Saint Louis
4. Old Timer: Remember When We Looked Up Phone Numbers in a BOOK?!