The Phone Book

I have before me BT's local Phone Book, which covers not only my village but in fact a big chunk of Sussex, from Shoreham-by-Sea in the west to Pevensey Bay in the east, and quite a way inland. It includes all of Brighton, and all of Eastbourne, big places both. And yet all the the landline numbers for public eyes in this rather populous area have been fitted into a slim volume. And it is slim!

What has happened over the years? Surely there was a time, and not so very long ago, when a telephone directory like this would be at least an inch thick? Wasn't it always impossible and something of a Great Feat to tear one in half?

Not so hard nowadays!

And the Phone Book's companion volume, Yellow Pages, is now also a shadow of its former self:

At least those 'walking fingers' still enliven the cover.

The explanation for the malnourished Phone Book lies, of course, in the fact that many residential numbers are now ex-directory. But it hadn't struck me before just how many must have opted not to be listed there. The slimline Yellow Pages is more of a mystery - wouldn't every business (and the number of small businesses has reportedly snowballed) want to appear in the classified and alphabetical business listings? Or have a lot of businesses decided that there is no advantage in paying for space in either the Phone Book or Yellow Pages?

The relentless rise of the Internet and the triumph of the mobile phone, especially the smartphone, have undoubtedly changed the way people connect with other people. The old-fashioned landline telephone handset was - still is - simple to use, but is no-tech, and all you can do is push the number keys and talk. A barren experience.

If searching for a shop or a dealer or a restaurant, it's a slow way of checking out who might be suitable. Yellow Pages (and similar directories) used to be a help, but you still had to work your way through a printed list with hard-to-read print, and phone them up. Whereas nowadays a phone, laptop or tablet screen lets you conduct a rapid search of your area with (say) Google Maps. The map pinpoints where the results are, when they are open, and where to park. Hyperlinks let you look at their websites, and there might well be photos and user comments, which give you a good idea what the set-up is like and whether it's worth making personal contact. You might also gain some preliminary knowledge about the product or service being looked for - a little information like that, before making a personal approach, might make all the difference. Dealers will treat a customer who knows exactly what they want a lot more seriously.

I vastly prefer this modern approach. When the time comes to upgrade my bathroom with new fittings, I shall conduct much careful online research into dealers, products and prices before I ever take the plunge and speak to anyone. The same for the venue for my 70th birthday, just three and a half years off now.

And the last place I shall look will be Yellow Pages. Or indeed one of those extraordinarily expensive Directory Enquiries numbers, such as 118 118. (What a rip-off)

So much for businesses, services, and places to eat. Why have so many private residents gone ex-directory?

I'm guessing it's mainly a matter of personal security - not wanting to be a target of crime. An entry in the Phone Book advertises where a potential victim might be found. I realised that years ago, and joined the ex-directory club as soon as I could. Once upon a time, I remember feeling proud to be listed in the Phone Book. I felt it gave me some status, as a solid, respectable woman of property. But when this spurious euphoria wore off, I saw (with some horror) that my line in the Phone Book was actually saying 'Hey, burglars and stalkers! Here's a lady living on her own! Come and check her out for criminal potential! Here's the address and landline number!'

So I stopped being in the Phone Book. No Melfords here. See for yourself:

Later on still - half a dozen years ago now - I got fed up with cold callers on my landline. How did they find out my number? It made me suspect that my landline number wasn't as well-hidden as I thought. Perhaps they had looked in some old Phone Books and discovered it there. Whatever the case, I resented the intrusion. I didn't like the jangling landline ringtone anyway. But what was the remedy?

I decided to simply unplug the landline handset, and put it away in a cupboard. The landline became Broadband-only. If I wanted to make or receive voice calls, I still had my mobile phone. In truth this was nicer, and I could never miss a call because the mobile phone was always with me, and always switched on. And the change seemed to inconvenience nobody. It certainly stopped those cold callers in their tracks. I've never reverted.

Once in a while after this, I might still get the odd call on my mobile phone from somebody I didn't know - somebody whose name did not come up in the display. I suspected that I'd been phoned using some random procedure, the purpose of the call being to find out whether my number was 'live' - and therefore a number belonging to a potential customer. So it wasn't wise to answer the call, because I'd immediately go onto a Sucker List, and I could expect to be pestered with a lot more calls.

No, the savvy way was to ignore the call, but check it out afterwards on the Internet. There were several websites that could tell you who it might have been, and what they were after. Generally, I blocked them for the future. It's so easy to do on a mobile phone.

Forty years ago it would have been thought antisocial and irresponsible to block any calls. That was a hangover from when not many people had a phone in the house, and calls were generally a welcome novelty, or at least likely to be important. Everybody eventually got into the habit of calling everyone else, sometimes about really trivial things. That didn't matter. It was 'good to talk'. If you didn't join in, if you stood aloof from the babble, or for whatever reason disliked speaking to a disembodied voice, you were judged odd, and a social misfit. At the very least, it was a direct contravention of telephone etiquette.

But the mood has changed. The rise of persistent telephone cold-calling - mostly from companies wanting to hook you into money-making schemes (high-risk investments, PPI and so on) -  have made a lot of people back off from answering a phone call from someone other than a friend or a family member. Going ex-directory is a first line of defence.

And yet there are clearly a lot of people who BT thinks still want a Phone Book, and a copy of Yellow Pages. Who are they?

The prominent ad on the back cover of the Phone Book gives a clue:

Also the inserts in the Yellow Pages book:

They think old people want these directories, because it's old people who are still using their landline phones. This looks like ingrained Ageism, but I suspect there is truth in the commercial judgement that the oldest generations do cling to their landline phones, and don't feel at all happy with modern tech.

Certainly, touchscreen smartphones must be a nightmare for shaky or arthritic fingers; and in any case such devices demand quite a high level of tech knowledge in order to use them properly. My parents wouldn't have seen the advantages and full possibilities of a modern smartphone, and wouldn't have found them physically easy to use. Simple, bare-bones telephones, with easy buttons to press, were much more their line.

But I often come across younger folk who, for various reasons, declare that the smartphone is not for them. Some tell me that it doesn't chime with their uncomplicated, contemplative lifestyle. That it smacks too much of the rat race. Others that they they just aren't clever enough, or don't understand 'that tech stuff'. They leave it to their kids.

I don't think the 'complication' argument holds water. I find knitting patterns baffling, but they are probably dead simple in reality.

As for the Phone Book and Yellow Pages, I think one day soon they will go wholly online and the printed version will no longer be distributed to every home in the country. No doubt the stalwart users of the printed directories will complain. But a lot of paper will be saved.

Would that the other printed junk that comes through the front door disappear also!