WEBVTT - Why Do People Still Use Fax Machines? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.480 Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:11.160 brain Stuff, Lauren vogelbam Here. In eight seventy eight, Alexander 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.200 Graham Bell filed a patent for a history altering device 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:18.239 called the electronic telephone. But what you may not know 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:21.599 is that the patent for another amazing communication tool, the 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.840 facts similar machine or fax machine, was filed by a 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:30.320 Scottish clockmaker named Alexander Bain three decades earlier. That's right, 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:34.760 fax machines predate even rudimentary telephones, and with a cockroach 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.240 like survivability that makes very little sense from an evolutionary standpoint. 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.960 The fax machine lives on beeping and wheezing up sheets 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.240 of paper the world over. For example, faxing is big 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.839 in Japan. Even today, about half of Japanese families use 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:54.400 fax machine in their homes. The question is why. To 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:56.560 understand it helps to know a bit about the fact 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.160 similar machines place in history. Although the technology had been 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.000 around for decades, it wasn't until the nineteen thirty nine 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.720 New York World's Fair that fax machines first seized mainstream 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:11.399 recognition in the United States. There, attendees stood slack jawed 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.399 in amazement as they viewed images and text arriving from 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:19.000 around the world. At eighteen sheets per minute, the machines 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.440 were simply too expensive for everyday use, though even by 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.759 two one standalone fax machines sold for a whopping twenty 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.360 thousand dollars, far too pricey even for most businesses, much 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.839 less individual consumers. It wasn't until later in the nineteen 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:35.840 eighties that the cost of the machines dropped to a 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.200 point that businesses and home offices found them useful, notably 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.800 for documents that required legal signatures. Copied signatures, as you 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.000 can probably guess, were a source of controversy for years, 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:49.920 as legal professionals argued about the validity of documents that 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:54.960 arrived via phone lines. However, as court after court confirmed 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.960 the validity of faxed signatures, doctors, lawyers, financial gurus, and 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.400 other professionals begin to rely on faxes to transmit paperwork 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.400 all over the place, thus entrenched in the workflow and 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.799 minds of countless millions of people. The late nineteen eighties 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.280 saw a dramatic rise in the number of fax machines. 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.720 America had only around three hundred thousand of the contraptions 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:19.040 in the middle of the eighties. By nine there were 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.600 more than four million the fax machines. Heyday was at hand. 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.760 They even featured prominently in pop culture. The nine sci 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.280 fi comedy Back to the Future Part two explores a 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:31.880 future where the McFly family had a fax machine in 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:36.720 every room. So the faxing process is one that billions 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.360 of people have ingrained into their consciousness. A place assigned 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.080 document in the machine, punch in the destination phone number, 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:46.040 hit the green button, and minutes later your paperwork is 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:47.600 in the hands of a colleague on the other side 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:49.600 of town or on the other side of the world. 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.680 Assuming that the fax machine has paper, the cartridge is 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:54.640 not out of ink, and nothing has gotten stuck in 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:59.360 the transmission process. But in the mid nineteen nineties, another 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:04.239 history anging technology exploded in use the Internet, which provided 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.520 people with ways to instantly send text, pictures, and documents 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.760 without the use of paper. With the coming of widespread email, 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:15.040 it seemed that fax machines were doomed. Only they weren't. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.200 In a study from market intelligence firm I d C 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.600 showed that the four major industries that are still using 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:27.160 faxes UH those industries being manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and government, 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.000 all predicted increased use of faxing over the next two years, 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:36.960 averaging a increase. So why is that faxing is a 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.680 familiar technology that people trust. The Complexities of the Internet 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:44.000 and its many offshoot technologies, along with endless headlines about 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:48.000 hackerspyware viruses, and data breaches, create in many people's minds 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.680 a sense that the Web just isn't secure. In addition, 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:56.600 government policies still encourage faxes, and legal processes like discovery 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.600 of evidence lean heavily on paper documents, and doctors facs 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:05.080 prescriptions and privacy documents and patient records. Fax machines are 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.080 a habit, and it's a habit that dies hard because 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.840 it's a simple, low tech, interoperable system that anyone can 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.400 use with just a few minutes of training. Also, fax machines, 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.200 like the aforementioned roaches, are evolving with the times. The 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.679 people surveyed by I d C said that the biggest 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.320 reason for the increase in faxing was that faxing was 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.839 now integrated with email as digital faxing, and so was 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:32.240 easier to use. We spoke via email. Todd Johnson, a 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.359 doctor at Access Family Medicine in Lincoln, Nebraska. He said, 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:41.120 I fax office notes, prescriptions, lab data orders and consultation requests, 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.200 all facts, anything else that's requested. I would email just 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.880 as easily, but I don't have a general email account 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.200 to send the requested information to. Typically, usually I'm only 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.320 provided with a fax number to return the requested information. 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.720 Johnson says that the newest generation of digital faxing makes 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.040 his workflow fairly easy. A quote. I don't use a 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.880 feed and fax paper machine. I can facts from any 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.039 of my computers, tablet, or smartphone. I use them because 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.760 I'm requested to use them by other facilities. They're easy 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.680 to use, and now electronically configured into my phone system. 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:14.960 I just drag and drop a PDF into the fax 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:19.159 portal and away it goes. If that sounds too good 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.240 to be true, Never fear there's still one old school 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:28.280 faxing bugaboo at hand busy signals, Johnson said, Sometimes, but rarely, 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.000 there is a busy signal. However, my system will re 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.000 send a failed facts or if it encounters a busy signal. 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.320 In spite of the intermittent hiccups and faxing, the machines 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.359 are likely to live on for decades. They're comfortable, cheap, convenient, 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.480 and generally reliable. They're accepted around the world in ways 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:50.160 that digital signatures sometimes aren't. So until digital alternatives find 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.840 the same kind of universal recognition, you can expect that 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.159 fax machines will still be here, beeping and worrying long 0:05:56.200 --> 0:06:05.280 after our individual messaging processes have ceased. Today's episode was 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.120 written by Nathan Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.400 Stuff is a production of I Heeart Radios How Stuff Works. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:15.400 For more in this and lots of other topics, visit 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.960 our home planet, how stuff Works dot com and for 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.800 more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:23.560 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.