The Slow and Painful Death of the Fax Machine

Every so often, a new technology is invented that completely displaces an existing technology. When a new invention offers such significant improvement over the current technology that it can drive an entire market out of business almost overnight, it is a phenomenon known as a "disruptive technology."

In many cases, the new technology is hailed as a "quantum leap" or "paradigm shift" in the industry. Before the pocket calculator came along, the slide rule was the best we had. Before jet-powered aircraft came along, propeller-powered aircraft were the best we could do. The typewriter was the king of the publishing world for decades before the personal computer came along.

In almost every case, these new technologies provided huge improvements over the existing ones. Businesses and consumers are generally eager to pick up on new technologies that will make their lives easier.

And yet, one technology that should have been disrupted long ago is still around. One slow and inferior communication technology still has not been defeated by its superior rival. It is 2009 and for some strange reason, fax machines are still commonly found in businesses, offices, and homes nationwide!

The death grip that the business world has on fax machines extends far beyond mom and pop businesses and the Luddites of technology. In fact, everyone from small local businesses to Fortune 100 companies still uses fax machines on a daily basis. I just cannot understand this!

Fax machines require a dedicated telephone line. They take forever to scan, compress, and transmit information. Sometimes they have busy signals or cannot go through. The information sent to a fax machine can only be retrieved from one physical location.

Do these people know about email? Do they know that it's possible to send multi-page documents electronically from one computer to another? In fact, email is a superior technology to the facsimile in every way.

Email messages can be retrieved from any computer that's connected to the Internet. With email, it is possible to send larger, high resolution pictures and documents in less time. Although both email and faxes are subject to unsolicited messages ("spam"), email provides the option of setting up filters to automatically delete such messages. Fax machines do not.

It seems to me that the only people who are still using fax machines are the ones who are too dumb to use email. I think fax machines should have been inducted into the Museum of Obsolete Technology long ago.

The Cost of a Good Education

Ask any college student about the rising costs of textbooks, and they'll tell you what a racket the industry has going. A few decades ago, textbooks were used for approximately 3-5 years before a new edition was released. This gave educators time to develop strong ties with the material and design their courses accordingly. Now, it is common for new revisions to come out every year or even every semester.

In many cases, nothing has changed about the book except for the picture on the cover. I often wonder if textbook companies are truly meeting the needs of their customers, or if they are just tacking on bells and whistles in order to justify their price hikes?

It was not that long ago that I got my first textbook that came with a CD-ROM disc. The disc didn't have much on it, just a couple of lectures related to the subject of the book. It didn't add much value to the book itself. In fact, I think most of the textbooks that come with CD-ROMs and DVDs and other "enhanced content" end up staying in the package for the whole semester. The teachers don't assign it and so the kids don't use it. The Macroeconomics book I purchased last semester came with a special insert promoting the "iPod Ready Videos" the publisher now has available on its website. I never looked at them.

I guess the idea of all these multimedia extras are to reach out to students who don't gravitate towards books. Honestly, I cannot imagine that learning about inflation and the production possibilities curve would be any more fun on an iPod than to read from a book. No matter how you present the material, it's the same dull information. The more you produce of one good, the less you can theoretically produce of some other good. That part does not change.

Imagine an alchemist in some medieval kingdom, trying in his workshop to spin lead into gold. While he may succeed in producing something that looks like gold, or feels like gold, at the end of the day it simply cannot be done. No matter what package it comes in, it's still lead. Such is the case with transforming a textbook onto a disc. It might appear different, but if it's the same information then it's no more exciting than a real book.

Perhaps the demand for multimedia teaching is a response to the short attention spans of students these days. After growing up hooked to the TV, video games, and computers, most kids these days have an attention span somewhere between that of a horsefly and a commercial break. Blame the media, blame the parents, blame the schools and the families and even the soft drink companies. After all, you've got to blame somebody, right?

Call me old fashioned, but I don't need any of this new-age garbage. I can listen to a lecture from a real professor and take notes for sixty minutes and it won't kill me. I can read a freaking book and identify the meaning without having an actor explain it to me. Knowledge lies in finding the answers for yourself, and not in having someone tell them to you.

Somehow humanity was able to transfer knowledge from person to person for two millenia before we had iPod-ready video lectures and interactive multimedia junk. I wish textbook manufacturers would cut the crap already and just make good, affordable books. If the web-two-point-oh generation of today can't handle paying attention in lecture for an hour, then that's their problem. Maybe school is just not the place for them. My blood is already boiling; don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of online classes...

Rate Me

The most popular websites on the Internet these days are the ones that focus on user-generated content. Sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Digg, YouTube, CarDomain, LinkedIn, Orkut, LiveJournal, and Blogger are offering more than just "social networking;" they offer a chance for both friends and strangers to pass judgment about you and every aspect of your life. Thanks to the Internet, we have a growing population of kids and teens who are increasingly self conscious about what other people think of them.
Let's say you sign up for an account with CarDomain.com and post a few pictures of your car. Other users can sign your guestbook and tell you exactly what they think of your vehicle, good or bad. Most people don't sign up anticipating that they will receive a bunch of negative comments, but it can and does happen. You could work really hard on your car and make it exactly the way you like it. Then when you share it with the world, they might attack you. Now how do you feel about the car? How do you feel about yourself? Do you second-guess yourself or do you write them off as random Internet jerks?

Let's take it a step further and talk about the infamous HotorNot.com. Instead of ranking cars, you're ranking people. Yep, just a headshot or a picture of you will do. Post it on there and let the world vote for you based solely on your physical appearance. If you're beautiful it may boost your self-esteem to find yourself ranked highly, but at the same time, someone has to be at the bottom of the list as well. Unless you spend money on things like hair dye and plastic surgery, you're pretty much stuck with who you are. In the real world you wouldn't go around telling strangers if you find them attractive or not, but on the Internet it's more than okay - it is entertainment.

YouTube is a great way to show off your special talent to a worldwide audience. Whether it's playing the Super Mario theme on a musical instrument or a video of your best skateboarding tricks, the site can turn an ordinary person into an Internet celebrity overnight. There are also plenty of ways for people to cut you down through hurtful comments and video replies. What if you spent countless hours perfecting a song and everyone who watched your video said it was stupid, that it sucks, and that you have no talent? How would you feel about yourself then? Pretty awful, no doubt.

The king of all "social networking" sites is MySpace. On MySpace, users sign up and post everything from personal information about their job and their education to their private thoughts, pictures of friends and family, and information about their favorite books, movies, and music. It's like a living obituary of everything you'd ever want to know about a person. In fact it's very common for people to update their pictures when they buy a new car, move to a new house, get a tattoo, have a baby, or do something newsworthy.

In those situations, the voice of the global community is not far behind. There are profile comments, picture comments, video comments, and blog comments so everyone can tell you (and other viewers) exactly what they think of you. The surveys that people post and repost are even more intimate. Does the world need to know if you sleep with your clothes on or who the last person to text message you was? Do they want to know? Should you tell them? What judgments can a person make about you from the information you give? There's plenty of room for harsh ones.

The point is not to discourage people from having fun and sharing their interests online. The point is that now your entire life can be showcased on the Internet for all to see, to be commented on and voted for, starred, dugg, ranked, and rated in an infinite number of ways. This has given birth to a new generation of "attention whores" who have an uncontrolled desire for attention and approval. It leads to statements like "PLEASE comment my new pix" and "tell me what u think of my new haircut, shoes, girlfriend, boyfriend, tattoo, gun, car, or whatever." I wonder if the Internet is simply a gathering ground for the vain people of the world or if the Internet makes people excessively vain and self conscious?

It seems to me like some of these people's lives revolve around seeking the approval of "the community." There are now an infinite number of ways for the world to tell you what they think of you. It is easy to forget that the only thing which really matters is what YOU think of yourself, and not what other people think of you. If you like your car a certain color or your hair combed a certain way or a certain type of music, that's your personal choice. If your roommate or classmate or co-worker thinks your favorite band is lame, your best answer should be "Don't listen to them, then."

Maybe you've heard the popular saying that "opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one." Well, it's true. So here is my opinion: don't live your life by changing yourself and your values to get approval from other people, especially strangers and the Internet crowd. If you're not living your life for yourself, then who are you living for?

Just a quick disclaimer: the preceding statement does not mean I advocate going out and breaking laws if you believe in Anarchy. Please understand I am encouraging people to be nonconformist in safe and legal ways here. Use good judgement and common sense, and ALWAYS remember the Golden Rule: "Treat others as you wish to be treated." The bottom line is this: be yourself, but don't be an asshole, either.


I'm not the only one who feels this way:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=attention+whore
http://www.pauldavidson.net/2005/07/22/words-for-your-enjoyment-attention-whores-2/
https://web.archive.org/web/20081029083132/http://nmallory.exit-23.net/20060920/approval-whore
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/03/26/2009-03-26_14yearold_new_jersey_girl_may_get_sex_of.html
http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2008/06/05/the-stranger-aversion/
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090325084728AAuZ2jt
http://www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/why-are-sites-like-myspacefacebook-popular
https://web.archive.org/web/20100728222102/http://fastandloud.com/the-myspace-whore-collective-friendwhores-scenewhores-attentionwhores-camwhores-and-regular-whores/
http://forums.plentyoffish.com/datingPosts6913048.aspx
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/MySpace_Whore