You’ve heard it from your parents, grandparents, or aunts and uncles in the family: “you never call us anymore”. Nobody calls anyone on the telephone and that’s the sad reality of the day and age we are living in today. Gen X individuals (those born in mid-1960s- early 1980s) recall, if a phone call was not picked up right when it rang, you were not going to know who it was or what they needed. There was not an answering machine, a redial or star 69, or anything of the sort to track the last call. You simply did not know who it was or what they wanted unless they called you back!
Even if you did have a call back feature, by the time you dialed the rotary phone number of the person you wished to reach, they could have easily have gone on to another task of their busy day, away from the phone, especially if you used a rotary phone. Rotary phone dialing could easily take a few minutes or more to make a phone call, especially if the phone number contained zeroes, as these were the furthest away on the dial and had to circle nearly the whole way back around. If you stopped your finger in the middle of the dialing or only dialed it part way, then you had to start all over again. OH MY GOSH- a turtle could dial a phone number faster than we could on rotary phones.
Fast forward to today, in 2023, and it is easier than ever to call others on the telephone, whether it’s a house phone, or cell phone, still nobody does it. But-WHY? Calling others is as simple as using a voice command, on Androids it is “Hey Google Call Mom”, and on Apple Phones and Apple products it is “Hey Siri Call Mom”, assuming “mom” is programmed in your phone as such, and not with her full name. The point is a simple voice command will do the trick easily for anyone, hands-free! I don’t know about you but I like to hear my mom’s voice in person since I am still able to, and she likely wants to hear yours too!
If there are no voice commands to dial a phone number, most phones have a delete feature or cancel so you can go back if you strike the wrong number. What?! Easy-Peasy. Just for fun and historical reference, those of you reading this article who have never seen, let alone touched a rotary phone, type it into a search engine now so you can see what we all went through “back in the day” to dial up our friends to chat. Some of those rotary phones were attached by a very long coiled wire, lest we forget could only be stretched so far or the call would be dropped. I would get on that phone in my grandparent’s kitchen and take a few strides from the kitchen as far as it would reach and that was all the privacy I would get. It was quite embarrassing to have an audience of family members within earshot when an elementary school crush called you on the telephone. (Insert embarrassing laughter nearby)
There are just so many other ways to reach people you want to talk to. You can text them, email them or use numerous messaging apps to reach out. For those who do call others, when nobody answers the phone on the other end, the answering machine picks up and a message can be left. Answering machines gained popularity in the 1990s. Suddenly you could see those missed phone calls and who they came from.
Do you leave messages on the answering machine? Or do you text them when they don’t pick up your phone call? According to LinkedIn.com, research done by the online phone retailer e2save5 found that only one in five of us will leave a voicemail. For those ages 45 and over, the number goes to 50%, but many millennials, or Gen Y, born between 1981 and 1996, never use voicemail. Many stating that they don’t like receiving voicemails, do not like to hear their own voice, or have anxiety leaving voicemails.”
While the popularity of texting, emailing and using messaging apps have gained popularity, many people still prefer to hear a person’s voice, listen to the emotion derived from exchange of information, and ask questions in response. Listening to and connecting to another human being is second to none other when a full exchange of communication is necessary. It allows a full exchange using verbal, and nonverbal cues (video conferencing, or FaceTime) alike. So, when your mom or your dad, grandma or grandpa, aunt, uncle, sister or brother tell you to give them a call, chances are they’d like the full exchange of communication with you.
