Does anyone actually use phones to make calls anymore? I like to call people, but I have recently learned that I am entirely uncool. Apparently, calling people on the phone is so 2007.
I have been with someone when they’ve received a call, answered it, hung up and then gone on a tirade about why that call could have been a text message.
Texting can get tedious, especially if you have something complicated to say. Not only that, typing on the phone can get awkward and time-consuming for me with my chubby little fingers.
I like to hear voices and inflection – it is too easy to take a text message out of context. I know this because I have texted people plenty of times without an ounce of malice, only to have the recipient accuse me of being snarky. How do you get snark out of “Have a great day”? Should I have followed that with a smiley emoji? I guess the smiley could be snarky, too.
About the only time that seems acceptable to talk on the phone anymore is when you’re holding up a line somewhere while boisterously carrying on a conversation. I guess it is still better than trying to carry on a conversation with someone who is too busy texting or scrolling away on the screen to participate.
Next time you are in a restaurant, look around. Sure, there will always be that one loud table, but if you look closely, it will be hard not to notice the number of people who are on their phones rather than speaking to the person seated across from them.
Is it more comfortable to hide behind a screen and thumb responses on a keyboard than to look someone in the eye and communicate? Maybe it is.
What we are losing here is more than that honest person-to-person communication; we are also ignoring anything we have learned in this life about manners.
What happened to stopping to really listen to someone?
What happened to being aware of other people around us and paying attention to what is happening in the moment?
Maybe being in the now is less important since we can now capture all the super-awesome moments with the cameras on our phones. We take those snapshots and write about the great time we had with the people in the photos with us, even if we spent most of that amazing time together goofing around on our phones.
I sound like a grumpy old curmudgeon, but as I get older, I put more value on having real moments rather than photo opportunities. I get more excited by the sound of a friend or family member’s voice.
Maybe it takes losing people close to you to appreciate the emptiness of reading little typed messages that can be misinterpreted rather than hearing what emotion is in the sender’s voice.
I have no clue how I survived the 1980s without a cell phone, but I did. I have the pictures to prove it. Even better, I have memories of times spent talking and laughing without the help of emojis. That laughter I hear seems more real than that LOL.
