In his song, “Payphone,” Adam Levine, a judge on The Voice, and frontman of the band Maroon 5, sings, “I’m at a payphone trying to call home / All of my change I spent on you / Where have the times gone? Baby it’s all wrong / Where are the plans we made for two?” In this song, Levine compares his relationship with the payphone—both are obsolete.
The Payphone in Popular Culture
The payphone has been such an important fixture in popular culture throughout the years. Superman changed into his blue and red suit in a phone booth. In the movie Phone Booth, Colin Farrell is forced to stay at a payphone because a sniper has a gun aimed at his head. A payphone serves as the transition point between worlds in the movie, The Matrix. For some reason, the payphone has been inspiring to writers and filmmakers alike.
The Decreasing Popularity of Payphones and Paper Books
With the advent of cell phones, the payphone has become obsolete. Everyone carries a cell phone around nowadays, so why would they need a payphone? If you can talk on the go, you don’t want to have to stop, fish for change, and then make a call.
As technology advances, we find that things that used to be popular no longer remain so. These days, so many bookstores are closing down because people don’t want to read paper books anymore. You can carry hundreds of books on your Kindle or Nook, so why would you want to carry a paper book instead?
The Resilience of the Blog
Even though the blog is a fairly recent phenomenon, you hear chatter on the internet about how even the blog will eventually die out. Given that people have shorter and shorter attention spans, it’s possible that they prefer reading “tweets” to blogs.
However, those who have been predicting the downfall of the blog have been surprised at how resilient it has turned out to be. Instead of becoming less popular, it has actually become more so, with many companies buying blog posts, and individuals starting blogs to communicate freely with like-minded people everywhere.
The advantage of blogging is that it immediately gives you a wide audience. Anyone anywhere in the world who has an internet connection can read your blog. In this way, the blog is actually easier to access than printed works are. Books may take a long time to reach you if you’re living in or visiting an exotic location, but as soon as you get the internet, you can read as many blogs as you like.
There’s always going to be a market for good writing. And as long as bloggers can keep producing intelligent, well-written posts, there’s no danger of the blog going the way of the payphone. Contact us if you’re looking to set up a blog, increase your audience, and spread information about your company.
