For students who struggle to remember a time without the Internet, the prevalence of fax numbers listed on websites and directories might seem like a superfluous piece of information. But even though e-mail and similar technologies might mean fax machines are no longer cutting-edge technology, they still hold some essential uses in the professional world, even if their personal use has declined.
In a recent feature, BusinessInsider.com listed the fax machine as one of 21 things that became obsolete in the past decade, along with record stores, pay phones and dial-up Internet.
Outgoing Tufts Community Union Treasurer Aaron Bartel, a sophomore, said that the Treasury does not use its fax machine often, but keeping one in the office is a legal necessity. "We probably use the fax maybe two or three times a week," Bartel said. "We use it some. It's not the most efficient or anything, and you can definitely get all that information across in an e-mail, but the good thing about the fax machine is that it's very secure.
"Any sort of confidential materials, like W-9s (a form used to request a taxpayer ID number), we actually need to send via fax, because e-mail technically is not secure enough, according to Massachusetts law, so if we didn't have those laws in place it would be useless, but we need it for that," Bartel said. "I'm not a big fan of the machine, but the fact is that a lot of businesses I think do need to use them just because it's a secure transfer of information."
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions sends and receives quite a few faxes and doesn't see the fax machine going anywhere anytime soon. "At this time [the fax machine] is very busy with responses for specific issues regarding decisions and so on," Rita Polcari, an office manager in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, said. "It pretty much relates to students faxing in information to embellish and so on … We get a tremendous amount of e-mail, [and] I can see [fax machine usage] declining at some point, but not too soon."
Although current Tufts students have grown up using e-mails and scanners, many have, at one point of another, used fax machines as well.
"I work in an office building, so we use a fax machine pretty often," sophomore Charlotte Harrison said. "It's faster to send documents by fax than it is to send them by mail, but I don't realize why they won't just print them from electronic copies."
"I have [used a fax machine]. I do Kids' Day for Tufts for [Leonard Carmichael Society], and we have to fax things to the city clerk's office. I do it once a year, and we send four forms out," junior Brittany Robbins said.
However, many students have found that faxing documents is not as efficient or useful as other methods of communication.
"I was working as a receptionist in my dad's dental office when I was 15 … I mean, it was annoying more than difficult. You got a lot of fax machine spam," sophomore Zach Solomon said. "I haven't even seen one since then, other than to fax orders in a chocolate store I worked for. That was convenient."
Solomon noted that a combination of e-mail and a scanner replicated the function of a fax machine.
Robbins agreed. "It's a lot easier to scan something now and just send it as an e-mail, and the fax thing is kind of becoming a little bit less modern," Robbins said.
Robbins also argued that older generations are reluctant to switch devices, but as young people enter business, this could change.
"There are still a lot of companies that are dependent on fax machines, or that think they depend on them. They're stuck on old technologies and haven't embraced new ones yet," Robbins said.
"As our generation comes up and enters the work force and the job world, fax machines will become a lot less prevalent," Robbins said.
But even though the fax machine may be going out of fashion, it continues to be functional, especially in the business world.
"I feel like it could be really useful in businesses that have multiple branches. All you need is to send the paper through and it's really easy, but other than that, no," Solomon said.
"It's more of a hassle to scan because you just throw it in the fax machine. I've used it at work. I work at a bank, and they use it a lot there. At home it's basically obsolete. For businesses they're not going to go away any time soon, because it's a huge function that [fax machines] have," sophomore Raghav Seth said.
"Maybe [fax machines will be phased out]. I think it's a while off, I feel like something more practical that has everything in one place will come up," freshman Kristine Wiitala said.
"I worked for a hotel, and a couple times a week I'd send people their invoices using fax numbers. I still feel like people ask for them a lot. I do things for the treasury, and they ask for things to be faxed sometimes," Wiitala added.
The decline of fax machines for home use has meant that when they are necessary, it can be difficult to find one. The Student Services desk charges per page in order for students to use the machine.
"Everyone has a phone, but not everyone has a fax machine," Solomon said.