Phone books in modern life

[AlexAD]

Hello.

I am just curious are telephone books still used in the US, the UK, Australia?
If get to Manchester or New York, will I be able to find a person's phone (address), by their name?

Thanks, Alex.

[SoothingDave]

Yes, there are. But all of that stuff in online now, too.

[Barb_D]

There are. They are not used as often, at least in my house.

A person can choose not to be listed but otherwsise you will find them in the local phonebook.

[susiedq]

I am just curious, are telephone books still used in the . . . .

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yes, but some people might have an unlisted phone number, so it would not be in any book.

[AlexAD]

Aren't people afraid of an arbitrary person knowing where they live and what their phone number is if they are on the list?

[emsr2d2]

Aren't people afraid of an arbitrary man person knowing where they live and what is their phone number is if they are on the list?

I think that's exactly why so many people now decide not to be listed. None of my friends or family are in the phone book.

[SoothingDave]

Aren't people afraid of an arbitrary man knowing where they live, what is their phone number... if they are on the list ?

Even more disturbing, if you put your phone number into Google, it will give a map right to your house.

[birdeen's call]

Even more disturbing, if you put your phone number into Google, it will give a map right to your house.

Oh! I have an account on Google and they keep telling me I've got to give them my phone number. I was thinking I could do it to stop the pestering, but if that's what they're going to do with it, I'm certainly not doing that!

[BobSmith]

Aren't people afraid of an arbitrary man a stranger knowing where they live, what is their phone number... if they are on the list ?

You bet! Just ask that jerk Navin R. Johnson!

[Barb_D]

Well, back in the old days, it was considered helpful to reach the people you wanted to reach.

You needed to call a classmate to ask an assignment the teacher had given. Her name is Jane Carter. You looked in the phone book. There were five Carters listed for your town. But you could tell by the address which family lived on the street that sent children to your school. So you knew which one to call, even if you didn't know Jane's name. Or you had to call the first one and say "Hi, my name is Barb and I go to Viola Elemtary. I'm trying to reach my classmate Jane. Is this the correct Carter residence?" And they'd either say "Why yes, let me get Jane for you" or "I'm sorry, we don't have a Jane here." And in the latter case, you'd call the next Carter family.

Back in the old days, we thought it was kind of nice having people be able to get in touch with you And back in the old days, if someone pulled up in front of your house and your neighbor didn't know them, they might ask what they were doing there.

The idea these days of all this "privacy" when people post pictures to Facebook that have the lattitude and longtitude that the photo was taken embedded in the picture's metadata seems pretty absurd to me.