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13News Now Vault: Remembering the world of payphones

The payphone peaked in 1995 when they were scattered all over the country in the millions.

NORFOLK, Va. — Today, we’ve got the world at our fingertips: answers to any question you can think of, social media that connects us to everyone, and non-stop texting that keeps us communicating around the clock.

But the main function of our smartphones is something a lot of us don’t use that often: making calls.

Imagine telling someone that back in the 1980s and 1990s, when reaching someone usually required a commitment.

Back in 1994, payphones were a way of life. Many of you remember finding a gas station, pulling over, and getting out of your car, only to put change in a metal box to call your mom.

That was sometimes our only choice.

The payphone peaked in 1995 when they were scattered all over the country in the millions.

On average, payphone calls generally cost $0.05 into the 1950s and $0.10 until the mid-1980s. Rates standardized at $0.25 during the mid-1980s to early 1990s.

They were a big part of popular culture, too, featured in memorable scenes from some of the biggest television shows and movies.

That quickly changed when the cellular phone came around.

The number of payphones out on the streets would drop year after year, from 2.6 million in 1995 to only 100,000 of them by 2018.

They just stopped making sense.

But we should always appreciate the effort we put into making a call at a payphone.

Let it be a reminder of how easy it is today to give someone a call.

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