This article comes from the Public Game Research Institute (ID:
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In contemporary life, people using mobile phones to communicate with each other have become basic social Skills – click on the app, type, click to send, wait for a reply. Nowadays, when the network is so developed, texting has even become more than one. For the young people of today, this way of blending with the world has become the rule that should be taken for granted.
But in the late 1990s, when the pagers used to be hot in Japan, people who were too far apart were eager to communicate, and they could only pin their emotions on the numbers on the pager’s screen.
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In 1968, there was a service for pagers in Japan, but it was not popular. Until 1987, when pagers began to have the ability to send numbers, this clumsy communication method began to take stage.
The reason for saying “clumsy” is that the way to send information by pager is quite basic and simple. At the beginning, the function of the pager is limited to receiving information, can not be sent, and the message should be sent to the pager. Fixed telephone, and can only send numbers, only one string of numbers received on the pager.
At that time, the process of sending a sentence is like this: find a landline or public phone, convert Japanese into a number, enter it with a dial pad, send it to the other party, and then enter a long waiting time for reply.
If you convert Japanese into numbers, you will convert the words into a long string based on the “transformation table” of the pager.
This is a slow and careful input process. If the sender presses a wrong number a little, the meaning of the whole sentence will become distorted and difficult to understand. In contrast, some commonly used numbers have made people feel like they are:
- 0840——Good morning
- 0833——Good night
- 3470 – Goodbye
- 724106 – What are you doing
This is not an easy way, but at the time it was almost the most advanced. Since 1990, the number of pagers has increased year by year, reaching more than 10 million units during the heyday. Like the hot pearl milk tea in Japan today is held by high school girls, the main user group of pagers in Japan was also female High school students – they are keen to use a pager to send messages to each other with their boyfriends and friends. They also create a strange sight that only belongs to that era: female high school students line up in front of the public phone, and then face a puzzling string Digital eyebrows.
This is also one of the romantic features of love in that era. Lovers who can’t get together show love through this little machine, they enter long numbers that represent short-lived words, and then wait for their pager to ring.
As the market expands, Japan has also seen a wave of “pager friends” – similar to “pen pals”, just changing the medium from letterhead to pager.
At that time, there will be some columns in the magazine about “seeking a pager.” People can submit their own numbers and friends’ expectations, and then wait for the arrival of “Paging Callers.” In general, after the magazine is released, the publisher will soon receive dozens or even hundreds of different numbers. Some people have become friends with each other, and some people rely on this to find lovers. Different from the current “netizen” identity, “paging caller” is more mysterious and more unknown – many times, you don’t know how the person who sent the message to you interacts with each other, who is it, you are against each other. Cognition is also based only on a string of numbers.
The Japanese have talked about their own experience with pagers in the forum:
When the pager market has begun to decline, he received a message from a strange number: “Do you want to be a pager?” Although I did not reply, this stranger sent a message every day, sometimes “It’s a good day,” and sometimes “I went for a walk.” In this unilateral exchange, the two produced a subtle friendship.
But this relationship is quickly over. One day, he received four consecutive messages: “Tomorrow is the surgery day.” “I was hospitalized because I was sick.” “Maybe it won’t be long.” “If it’s okay after the operation,” “Just contact. Worship!”, then this is from a strange number. The news never sounded again.
After that, with the advancement of technology, the new pager can also send text and become more convenient. But the strange thing is that the people who used the pager in those days recalled that era, the most recalled is a string of numbers. It seems that in the face of these passwords, it is easier for people to say “I miss you” and “like you”… and because of their complicated way of sending, these figures are more certain and precious.
An article in The Age of Pager Friends wrote that these processes, which require desperate communication to convey feelings, reflect the deep “solitude” of young people. The loneliness of the pager era and the loneliness of the mobile phone era are different – the pager brings a sense of loss, because the desire is often difficult to satisfy. In the mobile phone era, the mobile phone is only a tool, and the loneliness comes from the loneliness that cannot be fully satisfied by the needs of the other party.
“For young people who use their mobile phones as their own body organs since birth, it is better to say that they are in their own hearts than in a friend relationship that cannot share their feelings.” “Mobile phones” are important props for maintaining existing interpersonal relationships. People who are constantly striving to keep up with their friends may be an age that does not allow loneliness.”
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If there is any critical moment in the Japanese pager era, it may be The 1993 TV series and its eponymous piece “The pager no longer sounds”, this drama and this song promoted Japan into this short and enthusiastic pager era:
With the advent of mobile phones, the pager market has rapidly declined in a very short period of time, which is a more convenient and faster way of communication. Within a few years, it almost disappeared from the market.
As the market area declines, some paging operators have ceased operations since 2007, and some have stopped operating in 2017. Currently, there is only one operating company in Japan, providing paging services for 1,500 people, and in 2013. Start accepting new users no longer.
In other words, the only 1,500 pagers in Japan are still quietly ringing in the gap between ringtones.
A Japanese reporter found a user who is still using a pager through the operator, Fujikura.
More than 30 years ago, Fujikura’s mother gave him a pager, a model that only sent numbers. He often used pagers to meet strangers until the end of the 1990s, when mobile phones began to appear, and he gradually found that fewer and fewer people were using them. Until now, Fujikura has not encountered other people using pagers for many years.
The Fujikura now uses a pager just to contact his mother. His mother is over 80 years old and lives nearby. The reason why she does not change her smartphone is because her mother only remembers his pager number. As long as the pager rings, he can know the news from his mother.
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China also had a short pager era.
After 1980, pagers appeared in China, but in the early days, due to the underdeveloped communication industry and the price was too expensive, the market was in a downturn and it was not until 1990 that it was accepted by the public. In 1998, China’s pager users reached more than 60 million, ranking first in the world.
In the Chinese market, this machine has many nicknames, such as pagers, BP machines, or BB machines. In the early days of market development, pagers were a luxury item in China, and the price was hundreds. It may cost a lot of people a month’s salary. But with the advent of mobile phones, pagers in China soon also died down, leaving only the buzzwords “I have something to call me” and “Call me” to remind people of its glory.
After 2007, operators began to gradually end paging services, but they have not completely disappeared, and still exist in special industries such as hotels and hospitals – thanks to their wireless communication advantages.
Unlike China, Japan is completely ending all paging operations this time. Earlier this year, the operator announced the death of the pager, perhaps to remember the end of an era, on September 29th, people held a funeral.
At this funeral, people pay homage to a display screen showing a series of paging numbers. This string is “1141064”, one of the most commonly used statements in the booming era of pagers, converted into Japanese. It means, “Love,” I love you. It is also the last message that the pager conveyed to Japan in 2019.