March 10, 2005 Think of a Number ... Come On, Think! By RACHEL METZ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/10/technology/circuits/10numb.html?position=&; ei=5090&en=3dff056d1b79a36f&ex=1268110800&partner=techdirt&pagewanted=print& position=
HEY, cellphone user, when was the last time you memorized a phone number? If you're like some of the 176 million mobile-phone subscribers nationwide, it may have been before you got your cellphone, because - perhaps unintentionally - you've become reliant on the gadget as both a communication device and a phone book. Is technology, in this case, dumbing people down? Or maybe there are just so many cell, home, business, pager and fax numbers nationwide - about 531 million, according to a recent Federal Communications Commission report, with multiple numbers and even multiple area codes in many households - that consumers are simply taking advantage of a device more suited to number storage than the human brain. Edward Tenner, author of technology books like "Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences" and a senior research associate at the National Museum of American History, traced part of the problem to the rise of 10-digit dialing, which is almost a necessity now, even for local calls. The human memory is best suited for recording information up to nine digits long, he said, but a phone number and its area code are 10 digits, which exceeds people's levels of comfortable memorization. "And that has all kinds of consequences," Dr. Tenner said. He suggested that people were transferring part of their memory capacity to different tasks, like remembering passwords. "We have a lot more transactions of different kinds, most of which have a very small memory component," he said. "But when you add up all of those small memory components, they turn into something big." And with options like voice dialing and with phone books carried in electronic organizers or the cellphones themselves, the need to keep numbers in mind (or written down at home) is reduced. It's not a matter of dumbing people down, said James E. Katz, a communication professor and director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. "At one point, virtually no one knew what their Social Security number was," he said, so 50 years ago it was joked that "you had to be a real obsessive-compulsive kind of person to know what your Social Security number was, whereas today everybody has it on the tip of their tongues." (Of course, it doesn't exceed the nine-digit threshold.) The rise of the cellphone as phone book simply "shows people are flexible and are responsive to their environment in ways that are efficient," Dr. Katz said. But efficiency can also become dependency, of course, and that has its risks. "Their entire memory bank of social contacts is contained in that phone," he said. "And if they lose that phone, it becomes a grievous process to try and establish everyone's phone number." Jeff Gillis, 24, a student at Teachers College at Columbia University, knows the perils of phone loss. Over winter break he dropped his flip phone in a Blockbuster store in Boston, and it broke in two. "I was at the store and it was snowing out and I suddenly realized that I had no way of getting in touch with anyone," Mr. Gillis said. The only number he remembered was his parents' home phone number, and for about a week or so he ended up sitting by a land line at their house, leaving an online message with his instant messenger profile urging people to call him at his parents' home. "Every time the phone rang I was jumping for it, and that hasn't happened in so long, sharing a line with your family," he said. Perhaps the most frustrating part was that Mr. Gillis had been dating someone in Manhattan and couldn't get in touch with him until he returned to the city. "I felt completely alone," he said. What's more, for those friends whose cellphones were their primary or only phones, he could not even resort to directory assistance. Like some others, Mr. Gillis mostly remembers phone numbers he memorized before getting a cellphone. Unfortunately, many of these numbers - for old friends from summer camp, say - are of little further utility. "After getting a cellphone, it didn't seem to matter anymore whether or not you memorized a number," he said. Despite the risk of losing or breaking a phone that holds all of one's contacts, many concede that they do not back up the information. "Losing my cellphone definitely made me realize the numbers in it are important and I should start writing them down again," said Hannah Champagne, 18, a student in Portland, Me., who first lost one cellphone and then had a second one stolen from her high school locker room last year. Despite Ms. Champagne's resolution, however, the transcribing has yet to begin. A recent study in Britain found that 29 percent of those surveyed worried that if they lost their phones they would also lose contact with friends, colleagues and business associates whose numbers were in their phones. Seventeen percent said their phone was the only place they kept such numbers. The survey was conducted by Intervoice, a customer-service automation company based in Dallas, which sought to convince mobile network operators of the need for phone information backup and storage services, said Stephanie Leonard, a company spokeswoman. Some major American wireless operators offer this kind of service, either through their companies or a third party. Mr. Gillis's winter cellphone trauma made him a convert. He bought a paper address book and has started writing information down "just in case anything would ever happen again, God forbid," he said. Bob Hale, 50, a high school principal from Clinton, Conn., takes multiple steps to back up his cellphone's address book. Mr. Hale said he synched numbers with Microsoft Outlook and stored them on his palmtop. He is also keen on continuing to memorize numbers, "because my brain is wired for that," he said. But his daughter Rebekah, 21, a student at the University of Connecticut, said it was too daunting to memorize numbers or back up the information stored on her phone. "I'm in college, and there's so many area codes from your friends from other states," Ms. Hale said. "And you just meet so many people." In the short run, the number of numbers to remember seems destined to grow, according to Bob Atkinson, chairman of the North American Numbering Council and director of policy research at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia University. There are also fears that North America could run out of assignable 10-digit numbers by about 2030, Mr. Atkinson said. But by then, he said, there may be just one omnibus address for each person to use for e-mail messages, instant messages and phone contact. "By the year 2030, I could imagine most people wouldn't even have phone numbers," he said. For now, though, people may just have to back them up - or write them down. You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
