Some doctors, bird watchers, and others still use pagers due to their simplicity; paging company Spok has 800K+ pagers in use in the US, down from 6.6M in 2004
Fans, including some doctors and bird watchers, appreciate the simplicity of the once-popular devices, even as others move on LinkedIn: Tom Wriggins and Greg Coticchia Tweets: @rmc031 , @stefaniei , @aparanjape , @fordm , and @rarebirdalertuk LinkedIn: Tom Wriggins : I carried a pager/beeper for many, many years. I also carried a ziplock bag full of quarters, so you know how old I am. I for one was more than happy to retire mine. … Greg Coticchia : Change is difficult. And slow. — People, as well as organizations, resist the need (habit?) to move from current processes and products to newer ones … Tweets: Rachel Cohen / @rmc031 : “There are people who just refuse to let their pagers go, including some doctors and bird watchers.” https://www.wsj.com/... Stefanie Ilgenfritz / @stefaniei : “They're like the cockroaches of the healthcare system. ... They won't go away.” Why many doctors - and others - still cling to their pagers. It's a love-hate relationship. https://www.wsj.com/... via @arianapeca2 Amit Paranjape / @aparanjape : The ‘Pager’ is still around... in the US. Pager lovers say the lower-tech one-way communication is less distracting than looking at a phone full of alerts and apps. “I'm screaming to get my pager back.” https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ Matt Ford / @fordm : Dennis Duffy was ahead of his time. https://www.wsj.com/... @rarebirdalertuk : “I literally have an ornithological pacemaker on my body” says Dr. Rob Lambert @LucyMcRobert1 Nice to see RBA pagers getting coverage from across the pond in the Wall Street Journal, tho not sure the blinging up thing catch on with birders here! https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ
Context & Ripple Effects
The pager's survival is a counterpoint to two threads in the related coverage: the push to computerize medicine and the rush toward new wearables. As healthcare computerization largely failed to simplify doctors' work, a one-way, no-app, no-login device keeps a niche — Spok still serves 800,000+ US pagers, down from 6.6 million in 2004. Startups like Augmedix have spent a decade trying to layer technology onto clinical workflows via Google Glass medical scribing, while pagers simply never left.
First-order effects
- Spok retains a shrunken but durable installed base — 800,000+ devices — concentrated among users like doctors and bird watchers who value one-way reliability over features.
Second-order effects
- Vendors pitching richer clinical devices face a simplicity bar set by the pager: Augmedix's scribing model and the new wave of AI wearables like the Bee Pioneer and Limitless Pendant must beat a device that never needs charging management, apps, or updates.
Third-order effects
- The Second Sight case, where implant recipients risk losing their artificial vision as support ends, shows the flip side of the pattern: buyers in medicine are learning that unsupported complexity is a liability, which structurally favors dead-simple, long-lived devices for critical alerting.
The trend: In healthcare and other alert-critical niches, the simplest device that does the job is outliving successive generations of smarter replacements — a durability premium that new wearables must price against.