Big article in my Sunday paper, headline, "Is Our Love Affair With Driving Over?".
Miles driven in the US is down and dropping, kids are delaying or not even getting a license.
I believe they said something like 70% of 17 yos have a license down from 87% at the peak.
They cited various reasons. One was essentially that younger people don't feel the need to jump in the car and go visit friends, they communicate by text and other social media instead.
Different world now.
If I may jump into the phone guy fray. Not one myself but my grandfather worked 40 yrs or so for NY Bell. Retired in '65.
I have no phones, but a couple years ago my uncle gave me a flashlight that was my grandfather's. Not sure what he might have used it for on the job, but it says "BELL SYSTEM" on the clip. I don't know how old it is, from what I can google, Bond Electric made this style flashlight from the '20s to maybe the '50s.
I'd have to ask my mom about what exactly he did, AFAIK he worked in the office, I think he started out on the switchboard back when an operator had to connect the call. I know he worked the Bell exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair, I think they may have set up a switchboard for that.
Phone service has come a long way from those days.
Leasing the phone in the '60s? That went on until the '80s! I was married before Illinois Bell first allowed customers to buy their phones. I remember it was a pretty steep price to buy the old phone we had been "renting" from them. I'm thinking we paid something like $60 for our "trimline" desk phone. A couple years later, you could buy the same thing new for $10.
What a racket that was, sell old equipment to dupes like me! I still shake my head about that.
Reminds me of another developing trend.
We still have a land line at the house. But all of my 4 kids use a mobile phone exclusively, no land line. None of them subscribe to cable or dish either.
I think most of my peers still keep a land line service, but I know some that don't. That is something I think is dying out, same as print media.
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