Information People Used to Carry in Their Heads Before Smartphones

Area codes once carried much more practical geographic meaning in everyday life. People recognized the codes associated with their city, neighboring regions, relatives in other states, and places they called regularly. Because local calls frequently required fewer digits than long-distance calls, knowing whether a number belonged to another area could immediately tell someone how it needed to be dialed and whether additional charges might apply. New area codes could become genuine local news as population growth and telephone demand forced existing regions to split or adopt overlays. Businesses prominently advertised them, families announced them after moving, and people sometimes developed strong regional associations with particular three-digit combinations. Cell phones weakened that relationship because people can retain numbers after moving hundreds or thousands of miles away. A New York area code no longer guarantees that its owner lives anywhere near New York.