At break time, long queues
of high school girls would form outside public phones as they frantically
punched in numbers which were then converted into short messages to classmates
and boyfriends.
At the 1996 peak for the
technology, the number of users reached more than 10 million, according to
government data.
But mobile phones quickly
consigned pagers to the technology dustbin.
Major telecoms company NTT,
which introduced pagers back in 1968, stopped its service in 2007.
Visitors to Japan are often
surprised at the contrasting use of technology in Japan.
On the one hand, Japan is a
land of high-tech and futuristic gadgets but can also sometimes be bizarrely
old school — for example, faxes are still routinely used as a method of
communication.
When the last North Korean
missile flew over Japan, one of the more surreal moments was TV footage showing
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe learning about the emergency — on his flip-phone.
And the Japanese minister
in charge of cyber security recently made international headlines when he
admitted that he delegated computer work to others.
Yoshitaka Sakurada, 68, who
is also in charge of the 2020 Olympics, also appeared confused by the concept
of a USB drive.
AFP
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