It has been remarked that younger people tend not to wear watches, because their ubiquitous cellphones and other computing devices make them superfluous (interestingly, this brings back the action of having to fish something out of your pocket to read the time –  a throwback to the Victorian pocket watch, without the chain!). But I’ve just been informed of another victim to portable computing, and it goes back much earlier than the watch.

I was talking to a friend who is also a consultant and he told me that in his workshops the attendees often sit with iPads and other devices that they use to capture notes – and, no doubt, to peek at their emails. He then added an interesting observation: when he asks them to fill some observations on a paper form he hands them, many people ask to borrow a pen.

Turns out that with the growing presence and usage of iPads and handhelds, people use those to take notes, write down phone numbers, or maintain shopping lists – so many of them just stopped carrying pens on their person! The essential geek icon of the eighties, the pocket protector bristling with pens, pencils and markers, is long gone; now even a simple pen is slowly becoming history.

Ubiquitous items of daily life do slide into oblivion at some point (I’ve posted a collection of older ones here), but it is always sad to see another one fall by the roadside of progress…