Talking on the phone is highly overrated

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/ivor-tossell/hanging-up-on-telephone-talk/article1666256/

Imagine if some inventor in Silicon Valley came up with a new online service that made a loud noise come from your kitchen wall, or your office desk or possibly inside your pants. When this gadget went off, you’d expected to drop everything and pick it up, to hell with whatever else you were doing.

If you failed to answer a certain number of times, the person on the other end would be entitled to start leaving aggrieved messages about why you’re not picking up. (“Jerome! It’s your mother! Answer your pants!”) It would be, I predict, the kind of service people would complain bitterly about. Kids these days! With their things that ring!

As someone who spends a great deal of my day on the phone, I can only say, "Amen".

 

Not answering the phone and leaving the cell phone off are highly underrated.

 

Yes, when my kids were in that wreck with their father and I didn't pick up the phone so their mother and I could join them at the emergency room, that was priceless.

 

In a time when it is easier than ever to communicate with each other, the young generation is choosing to not interact face to face or via telephone. They prefer texts, Facebook, Twitter and email.

Me, I will just pick up the phone and call somebody.

 

I almost ALWAYS go text/e-mail/FB message before I call, if it's just to ask a question. If it's to actually talk, I call.

 

I never listen to my voicemail right away. Never.

It takes too much time to pull it up on my Blackberry. I just call back.

At work today I replied to 15 emails before I checked my two voice messages.

 

As I have found to my chagrin, text/e-mail can be tone deaf as hell. Voice to voice is a clearer communication; the other is like voluntarily taking away one of your senses. And a thumbs-up to HH's example

 

I always received a 3 out of 5 in "Phone" on reviews. I always wondered what I needed to do to get a 5. Talk longer? Talk shorter? It was ridiculous.

 

I long ago moved away from being a trained mouse and jumping every time the phone rang.

Now on my home phone ringer is off and all messages go into VM. I can access the messages on line and usually respond via E-mail. I much prefer controlling the environment instead of letting the environment control me.

 

OK, so if 21 is in a car wreck, you don't want to be disturbed from your slumber?

 

Wired had a great story this month about how texting is so much better because people can respond on their time.

 

Imagining worst-case scenarios is a good way to justify all kinds of behavior that we would normally find silly.