Phone books?

[thegiraffe]

Seriously, who uses phone books anymore? I get that some people don't have internet, but that's a small percentage of the population, why do they still widely distribute them? We recycled ours:



He loved it!

[Rine]

I use mine only for the service section. Yeah, you can always google things, but if I want to look at a bunch of services at once, the phone book is easiest. They should just distribute the yellow pages and not residental at all, IMO.

Helps to have one at work, too for when people want phone numbers for other stores or I have to play tourist booth.

[Plaidman]

Yeah, I use a phone book at work alot. Til I remembered all the cabs numbers. But I still use it for when I order a pizza.

[gremcint]

I actually use mine a lot, as do my parents.

[Broomjockey]

why do they still widely distribute them?

Advertising revenue.

Not lying. Got that straight from the printer of said books locally. Advertising on the page edges? More revenue. Think about it. Captive audience, get your message out to literally every household in a city. Or wider. It's astronomical.

Further, many delivery places include their menus in phone books, but don't have any kind of web presence.

[gremcint]

I can pick a phone book and flip to the specific part of the yellow pages to find pretty much any pizza place in my area without having to turn on my computer, wait for it to boot up and then search for pizza places with no guarantee of getting a comprehensive list, but with a phone book I just flip a few pages, heck using bookmarks I can open it right to the page.

Honestly how is a computer more convienent?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

For me, it's way easier than looking it up in the book I have a hard time seeing the number I want if it's in a big cluster of numbers near it, like they are in the white pages. Then I have to circle it, and sometimes copy it, and it's just excruciating.

I hate having to find numbers in the book, and I hate having to dial the phone, and having to do both at the same time....well...I would rather go to the dentist.

If I look it up online, it's isolated and easy to see. And I can look up a number faster on a computer than I can in the phone book.

My google-fu is strong, Grasshopper.

But my Dad uses the phone book very similarly to that dog earlier in the thread.

He tears them in half. It's his favorite party trick.

[AdminAssistant]

Well, a phone book comes in handy when the internet connection goes down or the computer breaks.

Seriously, though, I moved here on a Saturday, and I didn't get internet until Wednesday. Monday I went to my department's office and begged for a phone book, because I didn't know where anything was!

[draftermatt]

Well, a phone book comes in handy when the internet connection goes down or the computer breaks.

Or when the power goes out.

Now granted I don't think I need the 4 I currently have, but they do come in handy.

[blas]

We get phone books once or twice every year....I hate seeing them laying by my door....they just accumulate in the closet.

[Ratha]

I actually prefer using the phone book to find a local number I need than to look it up online. It's a lot easier than trying to look the number up online, where I have no guarantee that it's the local number I want.

[thegiraffe]

Since we've had the internet (which was early elementary school for me), I haven't found much use for a phone book except to prop small children up at the dinner table. Even when the power goes out or the internet goes down, we still have phones with internet on them, so they're totally useless (for me, at least). It'd be nice to be able to opt-out of receiving phone books from the phone company. Maybe it'd save some paper...

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Well, I had to heat my house with twenty dollar space heaters and a fireplace for the latter half of last winter, and let me tell you, a phone book burns for a fairly respectable length of time, considering it's paper. Makes pretty good tinder. You can also rip off several pages, run them through a shredder, and you get a handful of very nice kindling.

I actually kept a couple of those damned "talking phone books" in the wood bin for that very reason.

[NightAngel]

I get the phone book and immediately put it in the circular file. Even my podunk town has all it's phone numbers available via Google. Plus, the map is right there showing me it's (whatever *it* is at the time) exact location, address with driving directions, reviews, alternate places of same type, etc.

I have no need of the paper phone book. And if the power goes out, well, my phone goes away as well so, meh.

[taxguykarl]

I use mine only for the service section. Yeah, you can always google things, but if I want to look at a bunch of services at once, the phone book is easiest. They should just distribute the yellow pages and not residental at all, IMO.

Helps to have one at work, too for when people want phone numbers for other stores or I have to play tourist booth.

Not only that buts ours has some handy coupons.