How common are/were answering machines (including those included phones) in the US?

39 comments

1. They’re still very common on household phones. If you’re 30 or younger your parents have one.

2. Probably more common today than ever.. albeit built into the phone/service.. pretty much everyone has voicemail today

3. Everyone had an answering machine in the 90’s and into the 00’s. Back before cell phones became really common. Now we just text and no one ever checks their voicemail.

4. Incredibly common in businesses, somewhat common at home when it was its own separate machine in the 80s and 90s. Extremely common when it came within the phone. Now probably almost 100% because its built into every cell phone.

5. It was extremely common in middle class Midwest America when I was growing up in the late 80s and early 90s.

   I think most of my family and friends had one.

   Heck, I even got through on They Might Be Giants’ “Dial a Song” when I was in middle school.

6. People still use them. I still have one on my landline. My cellphone has one built in and usually older people call me on the phone but so do companies and doctors offices. Seems younger people mostly text.

7. They’re very common. Now the answering “machine” is just part of your phone plan or integrated into your house phone.

   What’s less common now is leaving a message. People will usually just text. In my experience people only leave messages when its something professional or there’s no number to send a text.

8. Before voicemail they were very common.

9. People that didn’t want to miss a call had them. My parents didnt like the phone in general so we never got one. They *never* paid extra for any features. They simply didnt answer it if they were busy. My brother and I talked to our friends or girlfriends on the home phone when we were teenagers. I’m 47.

10. Extremely common. If people had a phone, they usually had an answering machine until things were replaced with voicemails.

    If you don’t record a message, a mechanical voice would say to leave a message.

11. Back before cell phones there was no way to know if someone called you while you were not home.

    Landline phones did not have “missed call” feature.

12. Everybody had one back when landlines were the only way to contact a lot of people, but nowadays if it’s not urgent, you can usually just shoot someone a text about what you wanted and that’s usually enough.

13. They were a thing before text messaging was common

14. They were everywhere in the 80s, 90s and perhaps early 00s. I have not had a house phone since about 2008 and even then, only because it was included in the cable TV plan. 99% of the time I text/iMessage and only make calls when I absolutely have to. My parents, who are in their seventies, may still have an actual answering machine but we primarily text too.

15. They’re completely obsolete now but for some reason occasionally required for sending medical or legal documents. I don’t know why. A part of my job is sending and receiving and altering PDF documents every day and we do it through email just fine. Some restaurants still have them but all they get is spam faxes, pranks from other branches of the chain, and stuff that could have been an e-mail

    What the fuck, I thought we were talking about fax machines. Yeah people used to have answering machines at home, everyone I knew in the 90’s

16. Answering machines are obsolete because cell phones have voice mail with no machine required. I got rid of my answering machine many years ago.

17. Some people had them in the 80s. Everyone had them in the 90s. Then cell phones took over.

18. They were super common from the 80’s through early 2000’s, before most people had email, cell phones, etc. and landline phone was only way to reach people.

19. If you didn’t have an answering service internal or external answering machines were fairly common but by no means universal. They started to explode in sales and became pretty cheap by the early 90s. My parents never had one, but they had a dial phone long after touch tone phones had become common.

20. I don’t answer my phone if your number is t saved in it so if you ever want to hear back from me you better leave me a message.

21. Everyone had answering machines in the 1990s and early 2000s. It’s possible you’re too young to remember?

22. As common as land lines. Everyone I knew had them in the 80’s and 90’s. There was no other way to leave a message. I used one up until a few years ago when I got rid of my landline.

    How old are you? From my experience twenty-somethings and younger don’t leave voicemails, but older still do.

23. Common enough that I was never surprised when I encountered one, uncommon enough that I knew better than to expect one.

24. I might even still have a couple tapes around here somewhere

25. Everyone I knew had one before voicemail made them obsolete. We didn’t love them, but they were very lovely to have when you were waiting for an important call.

26. These answers are alien to me, I (millennial) have a voicemail set up on my cell and I use it often both personally and professionally; if I receive a voicemail it gives me a notification and I literally always listen to them. I also leave voicemails regularly, especially for work, and they are usually listened-to and acknowledged, even if I get an email or text in response.

    A missed call without a voicemail or at least a text will not be acknowledged.

27. Before caller ID was basically standard you wouldn’t know if someone called or who called while you were out.

28. Common since the 70s voice mail is standard now on cell phones.

29. A lot of people have voicemail set up. Everyone I know still uses voicemails

30. As a separate machine? Haven’t seen one of those in decades. Those weren’t very common. Voicemail is very common though. Annoying, but common.

31. It has been a long while but this is my recollection.
    1980s answering machines were mostly in movies to advance a plot and establish some prestige on the characters. They were based on tiny cassette decks that looked like a PITA.

    Next generation had a choice. I opted for voicemail matained by the phone company for a monthly charge. My parents opted for a phone that could work with solid state storage replacing tape.

    Eventually the novelty wore off and it was abandoned. I had voice mail at work and did not want it for my personal life.

    Cellphone made it available for everyone, no longer a status symbol, and we reverted to texting.

32. In the 80s and 90s (and maybe the early 2000s) EVERYONE I knew had an answering machine and/or voice mail and used it regularly.

    I still have the mini cassette tape from my parents’ outgoing answering machine. It’s the only thing I have that has my mother’s voice on it.

33. In the past, they were fairly common. Generally you recorded a personalized message on the cassette tape the machine used. It was not a robot voice.

    Once it was a digital recording included in phones, the default robot voice would be used if you didn’t configure it. This is basically the same scenario today in modern cell phones.

34. You must be quite young. Pretty much everyone had an answering machine up until around the early 2000s when cell phones became more common.

35. Everyone had one before everyone had cell phones. Even to this day if you have a landline you probably have an answering machine. But the only people I know with landlines are in the 60+ range or is due to work.

    Unlike others though, I know many many people who actually use their voicemail on the phones.

36. They were ubiquitous well into the 2000s. The first one I ever saw was cassette tape based, later they were digital.

37. I had an answering machine up until about 2002. Totally common.

38. As many others have said, it was very common in the 1980’s to early 2000’s. Anyone that had one and still has a landline (like my 84 yr old mother) still has one. Most of us have moved on to cellphones. I check my messages a few times a year. Mostly i just look at missed calls & if I missed one from my mom I will check my voicemail. Friends text more than call.

39. No one use answering machines now unless it’s a house phone