• Too Much Screen Time? Landline Phones Offer a Lifeline. [telecom]

    From Bill Horne@21:1/5 to All on Tue Mar 22 22:09:09 2022
    Like record players and VHS tapes, landline phones are being embraced
    by nostalgic fans as an antidote to an increasingly digital way of
    life.

    By Hilary Reid

    First came the rhinestone-encrusted rotary. Then the cherry-red
    lips. After that, the cheeseburger.

    By last summer, Chanell Karr had amassed a collection of six landline
    phones. Her most recent, an orange Trimline originally made as a
    promotional item for the 1986 film âPretty in Pink,â was purchased
    in June. Though she only has one phone - a more subdued VTech model
    - hooked up, all are in working order.

    "During the pandemic I wanted to disconnect from all of the things
    that distract you on a smartphone," said Ms. Karr, 30, who works in
    marketing and ticketing at a music venue near her home in Alexandria,
    Ky. "I just wanted to get back to the original analog ways of having a landline."

    Once a kitchen staple, bedside companion and plot device on sitcoms
    such as "¢ex and the Cit"¢ ad nâSeine"",â the landline phone has
    all but been replaced by its newer, smarter wireless counterpart.

    In 2003, more than 90 percent of respondents to a survey conducted by
    the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they had an
    operational landline in their homes. As of June 2021, that number -
    which includes Internet-connected phones and those wired the
    old-fashioned way (via copper lines running from a home to a local
    junction box) - had dropped to just over 30 percent.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/style/landline-phone-fans.html

    --
    (Please remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)