Instantaneous
by Tommy
For all the talk about our ‘always-on’ society, we appear to be satisfied with the notion that not everybody is available to talk to us 24/7.
I’ve never liked phone calls. For a social person who enjoys interaction, I should like them, yeah? You’d think that, but I often find myself at a loss of what to say, leading to awkward pauses and a lot of ‘um…’s. Yet, I’m more than happy to tap out SMSs, Twitter Direct Messages (DMs) and MSN messages for hours on end with somebody.
Why? It’s not instantaneous. I can afford to think about what I say before I say it without the subconscious pressure to say something on the phone. If I’m on the LUAS, I don’t need to say “hang on, I’ll talk to you in a second”, instead I can just drop the phone and get back to them in 30 seconds when I’ve hopped onto the platform.
I don’t appear to be alone in this though, as WIRED reports that the average length of a telephone call has halved since 2005.
But wait! thinks Cian McMahon:
[with SMSs] “People expect near instant replies. Less calls … doesn’t mean that we are willing to wait”
That’s very true, the type of society that we are says so – we’re impatient and can’t see why we should have to wait to talk to someone.
There’s one caveat though. Thanks to texting, there’s no way of enforcing that. If I’m busy and don’t want to reply for a few minutes, there’s nothing the person I’m texting can do about that. If I’m busy or want to think about what I’m about to say, I can do that, which I can’t do on a phone-call.
Think about it – with IM, I can see if a user is ‘busy’ or not by their status icon. With e-mail, I’m just leaving them a message that they can get back to when they get a chance – same with SMS
I think that calls are actually quite a rude form of communication. With a vibration and a loud ringtone, I announce: “hey! you! talk to me! now!”, which is why I always feel vaguely guilty even making calls and why you’ll never see me answer a call when I’m with people (unless it’s you, Mum!). Out of a €30 phone bill a month, a fiver will go on calls, max, (the rest going on data; I have free unlimited texts).
I think that the use of calls will continue to decline. What’ll replace it? I’m not certain, but e-mail sure isn’t going anywhere fast. As smart-phones become more prevalent (everyone and their mums have one – including mine!) and email becomes even more mainstream and instantaneous, it’ll move to the forefront, where it’s had its eye for many a year.