When's the last time you wrote a letter? Filled out a cheque? Sent a fax or rewound a videotape?
The subject of obsolescence came up at the Otago Daily Times earlier this week, when the editorial manager questioned the relevance of continuing to subscribe to Yellow Pages.
"Over the years, it has been an essential tool for tracking down phone numbers around the country. But, these days, I use the internet to find anybody," he said.
"Therefore, I'm considering saving a couple of hundred dollars by not ordering all these phone books. Any good reasons from anyone why I shouldn't cancel our order for these?"
Fortunately for Yellow Pages, several luddite journalists did pipe up.
But it was another sign of our changing times.
We're going from papyrus to paperless.
Christmas cards are also dying. You used to know how many friends you had by the Christmas card collection strung around the living room.
These days it's easier - not to mention cheaper - to send a free electronic card or text.
A quick check on Google revealed there are 3,440,000 websites devoted to Christmas text messages and a staggering 107,000,000 sites for e-cards.
Incandescent lightbulbs, which have remained largely unchanged since they were invented 120 years ago, are being replaced by those pig-tailed, energy-saving things. Landlines, phone boxes, bank books, plane tickets and traveller's cheques are doomed.
Cue a violin soundtrack, but it wasn't that long ago that facsimile machines, video cassette players and microwave ovens were new-fangled gadgetry.
Somewhere along the way, the future arrived.
"Technology is sometimes described as `the production of the superfluous'," University of Otago design history and theory senior teaching fellow Gavin O'Brien says.
"Design happens between what's technologically possible and culturally thinkable. It happens between the way things are, and the way we want them to be.
"But, design is limited by cultural ideals and technological possibilities. Not ethnic cultural, but what we will and won't accept. For example, mini-skirts could have been around for as long as we've been wearing fabric, but it took the right social situation for them to become popular," Mr O'Brien says.
• MONEY
Our use of money is also changing, as we become a cashless society.
The Bankers Association of New Zealand told the ODT Eftpos transactions nearly doubled between 2002 and 2007, from 582,683,088 to 998,354,348.
The value of eftpos transactions in New Zealand grew from $484 million in 2000 to almost $1 billion in 2008.
Meanwhile, the number of eftpos terminals around the country grew from 84,000 to 131,000 in the same period.
• PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography has seen many changes. The old ODT darkroom (which was something of an institution, with its centrefold pin-ups and hidden Gordons Gin bottles - there have been some changes there, I can tell you!) was replaced by computer terminals in 2004.
The 1990s has been described as "the lost decade", as the introduction of digital cameras meant photographs stopped being printed out, but kept on computer hard drives. Many of those images no longer exist.
The only photograph of former United States president Bill Clinton and his intimate intern, Monica Lewinsky, together was captured by an old-fashioned 35mm film camera.
Every other photographer had deleted any photos of Clinton and Lewinsky embracing, as they didn't realise the significance the image would later have.
Change has been swift since 1986 when Kodak scientists invented the world's first megapixel sensor. By 2005, AgfaPhoto had filed for bankruptcy and by 2008 Polaroid had announced it would cease production of all instant film products, citing the rise of digital imaging technology. In 2009 Kodak announced the discontinuance of Kodachrome film.
ODT photographer Craig Baxter was recently armed with a $5000 Canon SD MkII digital camera with a 25 megapixel sensor - a machine which can simultaneously take high definition still and moving images.
"The future in news is doing stills and video. That's what seems to be happening in the States and elsewhere," Baxter says.
"For example, with a breaking news story like a fire, you can be videoing the fire and snapping stills as well. It even records it all on the same memory card. Then you have photos for the newspaper and the video to put on the website, so people can see it straight away.
"A nice thing about the video, too, is that you can use your camera lenses to play around with the depth of field and get some really nice pictures."
Baxter's work with the new technology can be seen every second Wednesday in Flavours of Home at odt.co.nz
• VCRS
The development of the domestic television recorder provides a snapshot of the breakneck speed of modern consumer technology.
The first commercial VCR was the Ampex, released in 1956, but at $50,000 it was only accessible to television stations.
That was followed by the Stereo-Pak 4-track audio cartridge in 1962, the first Philips domestic VCR, the compact audio cassette and Instamatic film cartridge in 1963, the 8-track cartridge in 1965 and the Super8 home movie cartridge in 1966, Sony's Betamax in 1975 and VHS the following year.
In the early 2000s, DVD overtook VHS as the most popular consumer format for playback of pre-recorded video.
In June 2003, DVD rentals in the United States exceeded VHS for the first time.
A check of Dunedin appliance retailers revealed that VHS recorders have all but disappeared, with the only models now available the VCR/DVD-recorder hybrids.
The new high-definition optical disc format Blu-ray Disc will soon topple the DVD format.
Meanwhile, the digital video recorder, such as MySky, MyFreeview and TiVo, is set to revolutionise television-watching.
The technology allows viewers to "time-shift" programmes, so they can be watched at a different time to when they are screened, or even "live-paused", so a programme, such as a live sports event, can be paused then resumed.
However, a recent Sky Television survey shows that New Zealanders have been slow to adapt to the new technology, with just 22% of viewing being "time-shifted" and 2% being "live-paused".
The technology is being nervously watched by television advertisers, as it gives viewers the ability to fast-forward through ad breaks.
A lot of innovation has been driven by commercial imperatives, Mr O'Brien says.
"The thrill of the new is always a great marketing ploy. But, it's not always enduring. For example, hardly anyone wears digital watches anymore. People prefer analogue technology. In the same way, we don't have digital read-outs in cars. It's easier to read analogue, and circularity of time is how we perceive it."
• MUSIC
One thing that keeps on changing - and not necessarily for the better - is music.
Vinyl records were once the currency of teenage years. Super-8 cartridges and cassette tapes were for the car. Then CDs came along.
Now, music is downloaded and invisible, sounding the death knell for traditional music retailers.
Dunedin's largest specialist record shop, Real Groovy, closed its doors last year.
Although in a strike back for the Luddites, vinyl records have risen phoenix-like from the ashes of progress.
Dunedin music distributor Yellow Eye imports and exports music, including the old format.
"Vinyl still sells," Yellow Eye director Simon Vare says. "In the [United] States, it's never gone away. The demand for quality 180g vinyl will always be there."
Yellow Eye imports international music for New Zealand distribution and exports our local releases to overseas markets.
"We've been exporting Flying Nun for Warner's for the last three years," Mr Vare says.
"Music tends to be cyclical and I think MP3 downloads will get reined in. Downloaders don't tend to be really into music. The quality just isn't there with MP3 and you don't get the physical side of it.
"People are using downloads to check music out and then, if they like it, they'll buy it. Humans are collectors and they like the physical."
• COMMUNICATION
Probably nothing has changed in recent times as much as personal communications.
Many people will be able to remember party lines and those old oak-cabineted wall telephones of the 1960s and '70s.
Dialling a phone number and then waiting for the dial to return seemed to take an eternity.
Back then, today's mobile phones would have appeared like something out of the movies.
"The mobile has revolutionised the voice-calling world," Vodafone external communications manager Paul Brislen says.
"It introduced TXT messaging, something no teenager can live without, apparently, and now it's set to revolutionise how we access the internet. Devices like the iPhone and Google's Android (that's Google's mobile-phone-operating system) make it ridiculously easy to surf the net, access social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and generally do everything you'd do from your laptop or PC, while you're on the move.
"Speed is everything with broadband connections. Currently, Vodafone's network operates somewhat slower than the fixed-line home broadband speeds you'd see in New Zealand, but that's about to change. Later this year we'll roll out an upgrade to the mobile network (called HSPA+) which will give customers three times the speed (21Mbit/s download speed) and really get things going.
"But the cool stuff really kicks in around 2012 when fourth-generation mobile technology arrives. It's called Long Term Evolution (LTE) and promises to deliver speeds of 155Mbit/s down."
And the biggest development in personal communication devices?
"It's got to be the size factor. The first cellphones were handbag phones, then came the brick. Today you can pick up a mobile phone that weighs 60g and talk for three or more hours (and that's an entry-level basic model phone as well).
"Today's phones are mini-computers - far more powerful than desktop PCs of a decade ago - and let's not even mention the Apollo lunar lander's computer capability."
More than 80% of New Zealanders believe mobile communications technology has increased personal productivity, according to a survey recently released by employment consultant Kelly Services.
Yet 36% of people believed they were working longer hours as a result of the new technology.
• TRAVEL
One area in which we have dragged our heels is personal travel.
"It was a quantum leap going from the horse-and-cart in the 1900s to jet aircraft in the 1950s, yet that rate of progress hasn't continued," Mr O'Brien says.
"We're not really travelling a lot faster than we were 50 years ago. What has improved is safety, economy and durability and of course, emission standards."
However, Dunedin-born inventor Glenn Martin turned travel technology on its head when he introduced the Martin Jetpack at the Oshkosh air show in the United States a year ago.
The jetpack is powered by a two-litre V4 engine and can carry a pilot weighing between 63.5kg and 108.9kg up to 50km at a maximum speed of 100kmh.
Mr Martin, who was educated at Kaikorai Valley High School and the University of Otago, told the Otago Daily Times he hoped to bring the device to Dunedin early next year.
"I've been wanting to get it to my home town and show it off at some stage," he said.
Another New Zealand inventor, Grant Ryan, recently teamed up with engineer Peter Higgins to develop the YikeBike, a carbon fibre bike with a one-kilowatt motor that can reach a top speed of 20kmh.
The YikeBike will be available in mid-2010, although its high price of about $US5000 ($NZ7000) is expected to inhibit demand.
The Martin Jetpack and Yikebike show how human inspiration can promote technology.
"Mountain bikes and snowboards owe their existence more to a leap in imagination than technology," Mr O'Brien says.
"When Kennedy announced the American space mission to put a man on the Moon, it was in a rocket that hadn't been designed yet and built out of materials that hadn't been invented yet.
"The idea that the will to do something will, in time, generate the materials and technologies necessary, is a persistent one."
"Modern technology forms layers, because you've still got everything that was before. There are more possibilities now, but they don't subsume everything that came before.
"We're always going to have this progress and change, because we're always trying to better ourselves," he says.
"But, progress hasn't been uniform over all fields. We don't live hugely longer than we used to. We still have similar life spans to what we had 100 years ago. We still need about the same amount of food and sleep, too."
• BUT ARE WE HAPPY?
And has all this technology made us any happier?
Certainly Socrates didn't believe so. In Plato's Phaedrus, written in 360BC, he bemoans the advent of writing, believing it would encourage people to rely on the written word as a substitute for learned knowledge.
He also feared that as people would be able to receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, they would be thought knowledgeable even if they were quite ignorant.
They would be "filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom", he muttered.
According to a recent Australian survey, the happiest people are butchers - one industry that has been barely touched by technology in the past few hundred years.
"We listen to the radio all day," butcher Don Wilson explained.
"All butchers listen to the radio, so you sing along with the radio and you make yourself happy, basically."
A recent British study, the Happy Planet Index, ranked countries based on their happiness, technological development and the life span of their people.
Nine of the top 10 countries were from South and Central America, whereas developed Western countries fared badly; with Australia in 102nd, New Zealand in 103rd and the United States in 114th place.
Costa Rica topped the poll, followed by Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guatemala and Vietnam.
"The results turn our idea of progress on its head," the New Economics Foundation, which conducted the study, said. "It shows that a good life is possible without costing the earth."
SIX OF THE BEST
Gavin O'Brien picks his best innovations of modern times.
"The main developments have been in materials, transport and communication. But, it depends on your culture how you value these. The Aztecs had wheeled toys but had no use for the wheel in terms of transporting goods.
"Different cultures need different things. In many cultures, the development of say, penicillin, has been more significant than the internal combustion engine," he says.
"A lot of other ordinary things, like the paperclip, also don't get considered, but they're terribly significant.
"So, people are bound to disagree. But, I'd happily hang my hat on these."
> The chain-driven safety cycle. "It really is 'the god machine'."
> The private motor vehicle. "It profoundly changed people's lives and the form of the cities we live in."
> Flight. "It literally changed the way we saw the world."
> Communication. "Film, radio, television and internet have had a huge impact right around the world. They mediate our lives almost ceaselessly."
> Penicillin. "It has probably saved more lives than any other invention."
> Plastics. "From hip joints to credit cards, they have revolutionised the way we live."
