Calling someone overseas used to be both tricky and expensive. The cost for one minute of a delayed phone call with a bad connection often made us think twice about the person we were calling and if they were really worth it. Then came the internet and everything changed.
With free apps offering internet-connection-based calls such as WhatsApp or Viber, talking to a loved one in a different continent is as simple as calling them locally. And we haven’t even said a word about video chat!
Paper
Poor earth. We have been harvesting its resources for so long we forgot what it is like to live in a paper-free world. Thankfully, with modern technologies, we are becoming increasingly less dependent on paper.
Need to write a note for yourself? Do it on your phone. Need to leave your boss a message? Do it in an email. Need to write a birthday card for a friend? Do it in a Facebook post! Unless you’re an origami artist, paper is simply no longer necessary.
CDs
Making your significant other a mixed CD used to be the ultimate romantic gesture. The fact that people don’t do it anymore doesn’t mean that we’re less romantic. It just means we don’t use CDs anymore. With music streaming services such as Spotify or Apple Music, we can listen to pretty much any song we like and send our crush a custom-made playlist.
Music streamers also mean we don’t have to worry about a place to store our music collection. Just like vinyl records, CDs might resurface in the future, but that means only hipsters would listen to them anyway.
Driver’s License
Part of becoming your own person is getting a driver’s license. It means you are now independent and no longer have to rely on your friends for rides. It also means you can stop being a slave to public transportation. Nothing beats the joy of getting that plastic card for the first time.
However, this whole plastic business is about to end sooner than you think. You will still need to learn the rules of the road and pass your driver’s test, but the documents stating you did all of this will simply appear online.
Keys
Women’s pockets with no room for keys are about to become much less of a problem. So is getting locked out of your own place in case you forget your keys inside. That’s right, keys are about to go extinct.
Think about it for a second; you unlock your phone with face recognition and get into your office using a fingerprint scan. Why should your house be any different? Some rich tech enthusiasts have already taken that leap into the future. Soon enough you will too.
Landlines
When we were little and kids didn’t get their first cellphone at six years old, we used to call each other on a landline. We would hear the phone ring, pick it up, and ask who it was. Now, none of it happens. We call each other on smartphones, see the caller ID, and then answer the call if we’re so inclined.
Slowly but surely, landlines are disappearing or getting tossed aside in favor of our modern-day god – the smartphone. We used to think rotary phones were ancient. Now our kids think just the same about landlines.
ID Cards
Along with driver’s licenses, ID cards will soon be something only our parents had. We have phones that recognize our faces and doors that recognize our fingerprints. There is no reason why we would need a plastic card with our picture on it for people to know who we are.
The way we see it, next time you get carded at a bar you will just need to have your fingerprint scanned to prove you’re 18 or older.
Thumb Drives
Sure, carrying a thumb drive is a lot easier than lugging around the big block of an external hard drive. It’s light, easy to use, and we can easily fit it in our pockets, wallets, or with our keys. Still, despite it being so efficient, soon enough we will have no use for it.
Thanks to cloud storage technology, we won’t have to physically carry any type of storage unit, no matter how simple or light it is.
PayPhones
Another thing cellphones made obsolete are public payphones. Now that we all carry a mobile phone in our pockets, we simply have no use for them. Once an acceptable means of communication, these days payphones mostly serve as trendy photobooths.
In some places, municipalities are trying to find new uses for payphone booths. Until then, it looks like people are going to keep using them as impromptu studio space for amateur cellphone photographers.
Neighborhood Post Boxes
Once upon a time, people who wanted to send a message to their loved ones had to go through a lot. They had to write the message by hand on a piece of paper, stuff that paper into an envelope, put a stamp on it, insert it into a neighborhood post box, wait and hope for the best.
Now they send each other texts and emails. This means we are both more efficient and no longer in need of neighborhood post boxes. Those boxes can still be found all over the US, but at this point, they are about as functional as statues.
Reference Books
Looking for a dictionary word, an encyclopedic entry or some general information? We think it would be safe to assume that the first place you look is not a reference book in the nearby library. Those huge books are simply less effective comparing to the internet at our fingertips.
Also, reference books often need to be edited in order to keep them updated with the latest information. This means that each of them is doomed to become irrelevant and that’s just wasting paper if you ask us.
Car Lighters
Remember how car lighters used to be integral parts of almost any motor vehicle? Soon, they will be completely vintage. Carmakers now design their new models with some changes and this is one of them: swapping car lighters for cellphone charging ports.
It’s all about priorities and knowing the drivers. Something tells us that people tend to be a lot more attached to their mobile phones than their little boxes of smoke. Maybe it has something to do with the price tag on each of those items.
Keyboards
“Alexa, play Single Ladies by Beyoncé.” “Siri, set up an alarm for tomorrow at 8 am.” Talking to devices is becoming increasingly common in the last few years. We can ask our smartphone to text someone while we drive and keep our hands on the wheel, and we can ask our smart TV to change the channel without looking for the remote.
Voice commands or voice-to-text features are the things that will ultimately make our keyboards history. Sure, every now and then your phone would think you said “compliment” instead of “compliment”, but it is constantly learning and improving. Soon it will tell you what to write. We’re not nervous at all.
Image Source: Lebedko Inna @ Shutterstock
