On the 20 things that go obsolete in the past decade...

Since it's the end of a decade, it's high time to look back on things, particularly those that might invoke nostalgia since they could be gone for good. I read an article earlier today which suggests 20 things that have become obsolete in this past decade. I thought it's pretty good reminder of what would be gone from the landscape. For my own benefits, here it is:

1. VCR and VHS tapes
2. Travel agents
3. The separation of work life and personal life
4. Forgetting (since the web records everything and forgets nothing)
5. Bookstores
6. Watches
7. Phone sex via 1-900 numbers
8. Maps
9. Calling
10. Classifieds in newspapers
11. Dial-up connections
12. Encyclopedias
13. CD's
14. Landline phones
15. Films and film cameras
16. Yellow pages and address books
17. Catalogs
18. Fax machines
19. Wires
20. Handwritten letters
    

Not that I agree with this list completely (for example, the "forgetting" part is arguable, as popular sites like GeoCities came and went, after Yahoo shutters it, so too are the lives and times recorded there), but it enumerates quite a number of things that have been in long, slow decline for quite some time now, including bookstores, encyclopedias, maps, and fax machines. Their functions will still be in high demands (eg. encyclopedias, newspaper classifieds, maps), it's just that it'll reincarnate in some other form (hello, wikipedia, craigslist, GPS and google maps). Do I really think they would do an equally good job? No. What we trade for some (eg. speed to search; available for search anywhere anytime, as long as you have a web connection), we lose on the others (eg. how body of knowledge is organized can be completely lost on the younger generation; the patience in doing basic research against the instant gratification of plagiarism). As imaging copies become legally accepted, fax machines will not be needed anymore (although in some countries like China, there's still a loooong way to go on this, but perhaps we can export all our fax machines to China!?! Just a thought...)

Perhaps alongside the disappearing of handwritten letters, one thing that is harder to pinpoint and quantify, is the disappearing language and communication skills of the younger generations. The instant gratifications of instant messaging and texting that encapsulates everything in 160 characters mean that the younger generations are increasingly incapable to express lengthier thoughts or even write proper sentence or essays. (Or, do they have the patience to write at all, given that even emails are too slow and cumbersome for them?)

Other skills like map-reading the use of a compass could also become a dying art, now that everyone relies so much on their GPS device to tell them where to go, reducing humans to a dummy.

Other things that should have made the list but are left out include:

• Newspapers in print (and how journalism on hard news might survive?)
• TV (Now that I watch everything on my computer, anytime anywhere, I don't need it anymore)
• Ethernet cables and connections (As wi-fi security gets beefed up, does anyone really need or want their ethernet connections?)
• Brick-and-mortar stores (Not that this will disappear altogether. Afterall, you can eat the binary 0's and 1's, and the web can't deliver real stuffs like food, but stuffs like clothing and increasingly, luxury goods like jewelry, can be ordered online and delivered to your doorstep. It'll put the standalone brick-and-mortar stores in constant peril.)
  

If we look at it, all the physical stuffs (like books, and everything in prints) are fast disappearing. Everything goes online. Afterall, I'm even writing my own journal online, so there goes. :) When I look back on my life and ask myself the question of whether my life has changed for the better (or worse) thanks to technology, I have to say, the positives outweigh the negatives. I'm sad to see things like bookstores and alot of brick-and-mortar stores closing (maybe due to the poor economy, but the proliferation of everything online has alot more to do with it); on the other hand, it's a good thing that alot of wastage can be avoided. Things like, stacks of big yellow pages books that come every year that rarely do anyone use them anyone uses them anymore, should have been gone for good a long time ago.

I can only hope, that in the next decade when the younger generations come of age, they would find some appreciation of things of old, so that technology could help preserve these arts, albeit in completely different formats.

And, we should bring back morse codes.