Everything Changes

According to a recent article there are some things that are vanishing from our culture. Here is a sample from the top 25:

Analog TV
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in the U.S. get their television programming through cable or satellite providers. For the remaining 15% -- or 13 million individuals -- who are using rabbit ears or a large outdoor antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air. If you are one of these people you'll need to get a new TV or a converter box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast in digital.

Personal Cheques
According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, 23% of consumers plan to decrease their use of cheques over the next two years, while 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit. Bill payment remains the last stronghold of paper-based payments -- for the time being. Cheques continue to be the most commonly used bill payment method, but on a bill-by-bill basis, cheques account for only 49% of consumers' bill payments (down from 72% in 2003).

Handwritten Letters
In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?

Incandescent Bulbs
Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every North American home. With the green movement, the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase incandescents in 10-12 years.

Cameras That Use Film
It doesn't require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in America. Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional's choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market -- only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.

Answering Machines
The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly tied to No. 20 our list -- the decline of landlines. According to USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped 159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in New York; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It's logical that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.

Phone Landlines
According to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that had landlines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.

Dial-Up Internet Access
Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.

VCRs
For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found.

Movie Rental Stores
While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a quest of Circuit City. Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.

I have an analog TV that I use to play DVDs.

I borrow DVDs from the public library for free.

I don't have a VCR.

My bank now offers digital cheques and paper ones are no longer available.

I still send cards with personal handwritten notes inside.

When I'm away on a trip I often use dial-up Internet.

I only pay $21 a month for my landline phone and I use an answering machine.

This past summer I took some pics with my 35MM film camera.

I don't use CFL bulbs because they make people sick.

One generation goes its way, the next one arrives, but nothing changes—it's business as usual for old planet earth.

[ Ecclesiastes 1:4 | The Message ]

This entry was posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 8:30 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.