The 10-digit future

By now, you should be used to memorizing numbers, not to mention combinations of numbers and letters. How many passwords does the average American have to know to navigate the daily voyage through e-mail accounts, online banking, special key-pads on locks and PIN numbers on ATM machines? How many have managed to memorize all of these and their Social Security numbers, to boot?

So why should there be any fuss over soon having to dial 10 digits, instead of seven, to make local calls along the Wasatch Front?

OK, we understand that many of you get lost in this maze of digits and letters. It happens to the best of us. Confidentially, your grandfather probably never got his mother's maiden name confused with the name of his first dog, but he never had to use them to unlock doors in the 21st century labyrinth of daily life.

But most of you already know your area code by heart, and come sometime next year, you'll have to remember only one or two more as prefixes to the Utah numbers you dial.

The Utah Public Service Commission decided last week that the state's new 385 area code will be added as an "overlay," not as something defined by a specific region. This decision makes good sense. For one thing, it allows people to keep their current phone numbers. Changing an entire region would have required businesses to change everything from their listings on advertisements and in directories to the business cards of their employees. This way, only new telephone customers will have to worry about the new area code.

But you will have to change your speed dial to reflect three extra digits, and it will take a couple of seconds longer to order pizza delivery. Your neighbor may even have a different area code than you do.

That's life in the digital age. It's also life in a rapidly growing community. The commission said every possible seven-digit combination under the 801 area code will be used up by next June.

Maybe the day is coming when you can make up your own phone number, sort of the way you now make up passwords and user names. Until then, rest assured that a lot of people in a lot of big cities already have made the change to 10-digit dialing without going to pieces. You can do this.