LOL. SMH. Shrugs and eye rolls and sticky out tongues. OMG! Abbreviations and emojis express our emotions these days on phone conversations. I love them and use them all the time to convey softness or humour or sadness, because sometimes plain text messages can be misconstrued.
But do you remember the days when conversations down the line didn’t need emojis? If you’re antique like me you’d remember the golden age of old-fashioned telephones. Before cordless phones, then mobiles, then smartphones forever changed the world of communication. Back in the days when we regularly enjoyed chatting to each other for ages – not scrolling or texting or multitasking but actually TALKING – on the telephone?
Back in the 80s I used to spend hours on the phone with my boyfriend. He’d already left school, and school and school gossip didn’t interest me, so we’d talk about the horses he was training and he’d tell me about the locations where he was working. How his lead horse Rebel was working well with the yearlings, or how a new rogue off the track was making headway to becoming rideable. Our conversations were casual and slow, as if we were just chilling together in the same room. Something about audio conversations really puts you in the moment, forces you to listen to pauses and sighs and tone and laughter. Even long pauses were fine back then, without us feeling a need to fill them or end the conversation. Eventually one of us would say ‘you say goodnight first’ and ‘no, you first’, that silly phone etiquette where neither of us wanted to hang up first.
Then in the 90s as a working mum of two little kids, at the end of a full day when I’d finally put my feet up for the first time, I’d sometimes pick up the phone and just call my friend for a good old chinwag. 464380. I haven’t dialed that in 20 years but I can still remember her number. We’d grumble about our day, chat about parenting stuff, and share stories of funny or annoying or amazing things our kids had done. We’d commiserate at how hard it was to find one minute to ourselves each day, let alone working out how to balance life and wifehood and motherhood. And yet we made time to talk to each other. We’d toss around our dreams for the future and our hopes for the next weekend. I’d sit on my kitchen stool, 10 km from her place, knowing she was doing the same with our kids all tucked up for the night, and we’d talk for an hour or more. That was back when phones were still attached by a line to the wall. We couldn’t walk around. It was before we got the luxury (or the downhill road?) of cordless phones that allowed us to multitask with a phone tucked under our chins, talking while we made tomorrows’ lunches or other chores. Back in those days a phone call was still a call to relax and be fully present.
What happened to those days?
Somewhere along the line things changed. The rules changed. We all forgot the numbers we’d learnt by heart. And we all stopped calling each other. I know some purists resisted the changes, steadfastly insisting on calling rather than texting, but I don’t think many have clung to that sinking ship.
And when did we all decide that one must text first to ask ‘are you free for a call’? Or that we must first text to schedule a time for an appointment at a mutually convenient time for a phone call (with a courteous caveat that of course the appointment can be broken if one happens to make a different plan or gets waylaid or turns out to not be in the mood at that set time).
In the long ago days, if we weren’t free or if we were out, we simply didn’t hear the phone ring. Whoever the unknown caller was could always try again later.
Like most people around the world, I’ve followed the habits and trends of phone culture. I’m happy to have lengthy text chats in virtual time or, alternatively, just to send and receive messages without the need for instant responses. Here in Indonesia, almost everything from ordering shopping to contacting your bank manager to asking a doctor a question about a health concern is done by Whatsapp messaging. It’s not always instant responses, which is healthy, and the responses will be friendly with smiley faces and prayer hands, given that the Indonesian people are very service oriented and polite people. I like it. I generally prefer to deal with stuff by text than to actually talk to someone. Especially if the person on the other end of the line is huffy and short tempered, as I found was usually the case in the UK. Or if you get put on hold forever.
Texting is wonderful and suits me. It’s quicker and it can fit in with whatever else I’m doing or not doing. And it’s allowed us to easily keep in touch with friends and family – all sorts of people really – maintaining valuable connections with people all over the world.
Another reason I think I prefer texting is because when I used to work as an equine vet I spent endless hours every day on the phone. Like many people, the phone took over my life. Checking in with the office and answering client calls about their horses usually filled every minute that I was on the road between calls. And the nature of the job meant that during after-hours my phone would ring at any moment 24/7 with an emergency call-out and I’d have to drop whatever I was doing and whoever I was with and hit the road again. Over the years I developed a sort of phone phobia and got to the point where I hated (and still do) the sound of a phone ringing.
But it’s ironic, because on the occasions when I do manage to have a phone conversation with family or a friend, I genuinely like it. I find myself thinking, it’s so wonderful to hear your voice! So much more ground is covered, stories shared, nuances communicated, sentiments expressed, closeness felt. And I say, ‘we must do this more often’!
For weeks now I’ve been meaning to catch up with a few good friends on an actual phone call. Ah, meaning isn’t entirely accurate. I’ve been wanting to. But, it hasn’t happened. For some silly reason, it all seems too hard, and I find myself avoiding the effort required to make a phone call appointment. Is it that I don’t want to commit to an appointment? Or I don’t want to ask my friend to commit? Maybe I don’t want anything to take me away from the here and now, the mindfulness and presence of my day-to-day moments? I’m holding on to a freedom to let my day pan out however it will without a schedule?
And yet I’m happy (and guilty) of texting while walking, texting while working, texting while writing this, even texting while doing yoga some days god help me! I can look at text messages and respond or leave them. I can engage as little or as much as I can or want to at that time, or later. It’s almost like – as someone said to me recently – it’s all fine as long as it’s on my terms!
Not very sociable, is it?
And when my phone does ring, which happens very rarely and is usually only a cold caller, my default reaction without even seeing who it is, is to think ‘How rude!’ Doesn’t the caller understand Whatsapp and Messenger etiquette? One NEVER calls unsolicited. Texts only please, unless a phone call is mutually agreed to first.
Not very gracious, is it?
And video calls? Some people just slip easily into them and chat with a friend while they’re going about their day, walking or cooking or whatever. Have you embraced video calls? For me with my poor eyesight I find my arms just aren’t long enough! Or, thanks to my multifocal glasses, I have to hold the phone beneath my chin to see the other person, which gives them a gorgeous view up my nostrils. It’s fine for calls with my little grandson. But with grown-ups? Nah. To be fair, it’s hard to really connect when you struggle to see. In any case, that sustained eye contact that goes with video calls, with no body language visible, is draining.
And yet, guilty as I am these days for not making phone calls, I still think back on the old fashioned phone days of real conversations (not the abbreviated emoji-filled carefully-crafted poetry of text chats) with a fond nostalgia. I wonder why we allowed phone culture and etiquette to change so much.
Is it merely due to changes in technology? Or is there some more profound reason for it?
Can we blame social media? Perhaps we are exhausted by the level of ‘connectedness’ we maintain in other ways, always knowing what is going on in the news within minutes of it happening, constantly scrolling all our social media feeds. How much of it is due to information overload? Our brains are overwhelmed. And, for sure, we need to set boundaries!
Perhaps it’s due to sociological or mental health considerations, the reduced face-to-face connectedness these days leading to some fears that we could be an inconvenience. Or to a fear of being unwanted?
Perhaps it’s because our lives are so fast and so busy these days, with most families having both parents working, or a single parent working, with little support from extended family or ‘the village’. We’ve lost the luxury of time? No matter what we do, days simply disappear; perhaps it’s simply that we don’t have the time to sit and chew the fat. Or maybe we’d rather devote our precious time at the end of the day to our families, given we haven’t seen them all day.
Or maybe it’s because so many of us veg out at the end of the day in front of the TV or Netflix. (If I was texting these words I’d pop in some thinking emojis and screwy-uppy faces here.)
I don’t know the answer, but I’m going to try to make more of an effort to talk with family and friends on the phone – if I’m not intruding, and they don’t mind me calling, and if they have the time, and if we are in the mood!
In my inbox I receive a weekly newsletter from a wonderful journalist, author and person, Stephanie Wood, who last week chatted with a friend about this very topic. It inspired this bloggie. She quoted her friend, who said…
“I think we should make a global compact not to schedule phone calls. Just ring. If the other person can’t or chooses not to answer, that’s fine. Leave a text instead, or don’t. Ring again another time.”
