Photo/Illutration A public payphone installed in front of JR Shinbashi Station in Tokyo (Satoru Eguchi)

I once started writing “like a broken record” and stopped, realizing this could all be Greek to the younger generations.

An idiom that means “to keep saying the same thing over and over again,” it refers to a record--or a vinyl to young people--with a crack or scratch that causes the stylus to skip and come back to the flawed spot, playing the same section of the song over and over.

“Dialing” must also be in the realm of dead words.

There was a time when every telephone had a rotary dial with holes around the inside edge for the user to stick their fingertip into. The rotating dial made a “zico zico” sound.

You needed a 10-yen coin to use a public payphone.

When your allotted time was almost up, the phone would beep. Flustered, you’d start talking as fast as possible, but sometimes you got cut off before you finished.

All this feels like ancient history.

The latest issue of “Yochien” (Kindergarten) magazine for nursery school children came with the free gift of a cardboard replica of a payphone.

It required assembly.

Detaching the parts from their cardboard mount, I became completely engrossed in folding and fitting the pieces together as instructed, enjoying the process enormously.

For about an hour, it was like I was back in my childhood.

The finished product was amazingly “sophisticated.”

When I put the receiver down, the phone even ejected the phone card.

But my surprises didn’t end there.

The magazine gave a quiz.

One question went: “What is the first thing you do when you make a call from a public payphone? 1. Enter the phone number; 2. Lift the receiver; 3. Insert the coin.”

The question, itself, made me acutely aware of how long ago the Showa Era (1926-1989) was.

But actually, the magazine running a quiz like this made perfect sense.

About 80 percent of elementary school children today have never used a public payphone, according to Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corp.

And landline telephones are rapidly disappearing from homes and offices.

Methods of communication change with the times.

I remembered this poem from a while back. Penned by Kyoko Yoshihara, it went to the effect, “Teaching a toddler that this sheet of paper, filled with letters, is called a ‘newspaper’/ But there is no newspaper in the toddler’s home.”

Oh, well. I guess this is no time for immersing myself in nostalgia.

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 13

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.