In 1993, Laurie Dove heavily relied on beepers to communicate with her husband while living in a remote area of rural Kansas during her pregnancy. The beepers served as a vital means of communication for urgent messages, using a code like ‘9-1-1’ for critical situations. However, beepers faded in popularity with the rise of smartphones, reappearing tragically in Lebanon when sabotaged pagers caused deadly explosions, leaving many injured and dead. These incidents highlighted the enduring attachments people have to these devices and the connections they enable.
Despite their declining popularity, pagers are still used by some due to their reliability in areas with poor cell coverage or during network failures. Medical professionals and emergency workers find pagers useful, especially in remote locations like oil rigs. Additionally, pagers are preferred by individuals concerned about privacy as they cannot be easily tracked, unlike smartphones.
Originally intended for doctors, pagers faced initial resistance due to the constant availability they required. By the 1980s, pagers became status symbols used by professionals like doctors and lawyers, but they also gained a negative association with drug dealers, leading to bans in schools. However, in the mid-90s, over 60 million beepers were in use.
Despite the prevalence of smartphones, pagers still have a small but significant market share, particularly in healthcare, where their reliability in emergencies is crucial. First responders, large manufacturers, and even members of groups like Hezbollah rely on pagers for communication. Challenges like the lack of two-way communication, security concerns, and inefficiency persist with pagers, but many still find them indispensable in certain scenarios.
Although efforts to phase out pagers exist, like at San Francisco General Hospital, the enduring one-way communication and autonomy they provide keep them relevant in various industries. The intrinsic limitations of pagers notwithstanding, their unique functionalities ensure their continued use in certain situations, marking them as a technology likely to stay for the foreseeable future.
