Don’t Call Us . . .

Ever since the Herald Examiner reported that 56% of all telephone customers in Los Angeles County’s have unlisted telephone numbers, we’ve brooded about what this means. Is the extraordinary percentage of unlisted numbers, twice the national average, a sign of growing alienation and anomie? Does it confirm the suspicions, usually voiced on the other coast, that Californians are rootless, cut off from one another and their own pasts? Or does it simply mean that more Angelenos are putting on airs, pretending to be as important as the movie stars and politicians who must keep their numbers private to protect themselves from ardent fans or hostile constituents?

A high rate of “unlistedness”--that’s the term that the market-research folks use--certainly doesn’t make a town any tonier. After all, the only city in the United States with a larger percentage of unlisted telephones than Los Angeles is Las Vegas (where 60.3% of the phones are unlisted). Unlisting a telephone number often is a way to avoid creditors, ex-spouses and high-school classmates, but can there really be that many Angelenos dodging reminders of their pasts? And we refuse to believe that residents of Los Angeles County are phonephobes, latter-day Garbos who want to be left alone. Just look at all thosetelephone addicts who install call-waiting and answering machines on their home lines, speed down the freeways with cellular phones planted on their ears and carry cordless phones into their gardens.

The only explanation that makes any sense is that many people believe that by switching to unlisted numbers they can screen out the nuisance calls that invariably arrive just as dinner is ready. Unfortunately, maintaining an unlisted number does not protect against all such calls; now many solicitors, especially those that have computers do their calling for them, simply dial every number in an exchange in sequence, unlisted or not.

Whatever the reasons, unlistedness is on the rise; every year another 2% of Southern Californians stop listing their numbers. With only 44% of telephone users now willing to list their numbers, it means that the white pages will become thinner and thinner each year until they disappear altogether in less than a generation. Think of the space that will be saved on bookshelves. Think of not having to bump into those clumsy directories in the confines of a telephone booth. Think of what the world will be like when the only people who call are those who already know you well enough to have your phone number.