HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I had the funniest experience the other day. I talked to someone on the phone. It was a business call, book-related, and his person had called me asking for advice. I’m trying to finish my new book--almost there--and you know, sometimes it feels like I can’t type one more word.
So I wrote to him: wanna talk on the phone? I know. Radical.
But I have to tell you. We said hi, we talked about what we needed to talk about, done and done and goodbye. End of transaction. I loved it.
But what’s the deal about talking on the phone? I was at a book organization the other day,very hip, and NO ONE was talking. No one. I said--wow, there are 50 desks in here, with people and it is so quiet! And my friend said--yeah, everyone just talks on Slack. They text, even for meetings. And sometimes there’ll be a big burst of laughter in one area of the office, because they’re all in a Slack meeting and laughing at the same thing.
They don't talk? I said.
Nope. And if they want to talk: She led me to another part of the fabulously cool office and showed me phone booths. Seriously. They have phone booths, soundproof little rooms, phone-booth sized, with a little desk and a stool, and they’re all glass. But phone booths.
My interns? At Channel 7? Will not call people. They email. Or text. But talk to someone? In person? Nope nope nope. Anything but that.
From time to time, I adore talking to pals on the phone--it’s fun and fast and you can gauge emotions and connect. I used to talk on the phone all the time, it was standard, and a thing to do. And I know email is way more efficient, and you can do it at any time that’s convenient, and answer when it's convenient.
And I do HATE when the phone rings, because it's invasive and annoying and it’s never anyone. And I never answer it.
AH. It used to be such a good thing. We'd WAIT by the phone! But now--how do you feel about the telephone?
LUCY BURDETTE: I don’t like the phone ringing either--in fact we’ve dispensed with our landline in Key West so we don’t get daily debt collectors like we used to. (And yes, we pay our bills LOL!) So we have two cell phones and they make it super easy to screen
spam, telemarketers, or simply folks you don’t want to talk to at that moment.
The one drawback to everyone having his or her own phone is that you never get someone by happenstance. Like an in-law for example. When my father or my in-laws used to call on the land line, they might get John. They might get me. And that gave either of us a chance to catch up. Now our kids call either John or me, and that’s who they get. And we miss talking to their spouses. See what I mean?
HALLIE EPHRON: If I call either of my daughters on the phone, first thing they say is “Are you all right??” Panic stricken. So if I call, instead of saying “Hello” I lead with “We’re fine!” If I want to talk I text first and ask if it’s a good time to call. And we never answer our land line because it’s always spam. This is making me remember the hours I spent on the phone as a teenager. And I love to FaceTime with the grands…
DEBORAH CROMBIE: We still have our landline (although it’s actually Internet and only costs something ridiculous like $7 a year. Rick uses it occasionally because he doesn’t have unlimited minutes on his cell phone, but I never do and I’m very irritated when it rings. I don’t answer unfamiliar calls on my cell phone, either. I figure if it’s legit, the person can leave a message and I’ll call them back. I do talk to several friends often and regularly, however. Texting is just no substitute for a conversation, especially with the friends who live in other parts of the country.
RHYS BOWEN: I love talking on the phone! My son, daughters and I talk regularly, usually when they are driving. I talk to my sister in law and friends in UK and my brother in Australia. We have a landline and those calls cost almost nothing. I remember when my phone bill was over $300 a month, calling my mother in Australia. The spam does drive one mad, of course but I sometimes get a good laugh when I’m told the IRS is coming for me or Microft has detected trouble with my computer. (I have a Mac)
I do find myself texting more and more just to ask simple questions. But I rather fear the young will lose the art of conversation.
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JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We got rid of the landline years ago,
when I realized we had four people with four phones (later, five) and the only
thing we got on our local, rural land line was call the school. When the power
went out - as it frequently did until a few years ago - we'd lose the phone, as
well, because it was a modern one run by electricity rather than through the
phone line like the old AT&T behemoths.
Do I talk on the phone? I'm not a fan. I have a few friends who
are chatty, and we like to catch up via phone, and i talk to my sister (a lot)
my brother (occasionally) and my dad (once a week.) But I don't like to sit and
talk. I get up, I pace, I wash dishes. And then there are always those people -
not YOU, personal friend of mine who might be reading this! - who CANNOT wrap
up a conversation. They keep throwing up one topic after another as you say,
"Gosh, look at the time."
I used to have a lot of my phone conversations while I was
driving (with a Bluetooth, of course) but lately, I have to admit, I often find
it too distracting. If I'm driving at night, if the weather isn't great, if
it's an area with which I'm unfamiliar, I can't be on the phone. That's a super
old lady move, isn't it?
JENN MCKINLAY: I talk on the phone with my family but that’s about it. They’re on the other side of the country so I prefer talking to texting so I can really gauge how they’re doing. The same for the Hub and the Hooligans - I like to hear their voices.
Also, if I am working on revisions, I like to talk out the changes with my editor. It’s actually much more efficient to talk through changes than try to email them.
No landline here. I most definitely do not miss sales or political calls. Seriously, lose my number!
HANK: How about you, Reds and readers?
If we call your landline, will you answer?
(And hey--you DO know that in most places, if you call 911 from a cellphone, the dispatcher does NOT know where you are? That's why we keep our landline at home. And that's why dispatchers often now say: "911, WHERE'S your emergency.")
(And hey--you DO know that in most places, if you call 911 from a cellphone, the dispatcher does NOT know where you are? That's why we keep our landline at home. And that's why dispatchers often now say: "911, WHERE'S your emergency.")
I don’t like talking on my cell phone and seldom do; I never answer unless I know who’s calling. But I'm good with texting my grandbabies!
ReplyDeleteWe do have a landline, but I seldom answer it, either . . . caller identification comes up on the television screen, so if the TV is on, I can see who it is [actually who it isn’t because the scammers try to trick you by pretending they’re someone else]. I do talk to family, but that’s about it.
And, yes, if you called my landline, I definitely would answer the phone because the caller ID would tell me it was you :)
Caller ID! I am still not used to it. Even when I know who it is, I say hello? And then I started to realize how silly that was. Now I say “hi, Nancy” or whoever it is.! But it still feels strange.
DeleteI'm with you on that strange feeling. Even though I know the person answering my call has caller ID, I always says, "hello, person, This is Elisabeth". and it unnerves me when they respond, "yes, I saw that." LOL
DeleteIf you call my land line, I won't answer. I have the ringer turned off. Of course, I don't give out the number. But I will answer if you call my cell phone.
ReplyDeleteFor work, I can understand wanting to send an email. Then you have a record of the answer if there is any confusion later. And, since some of my current co-workers live on the other side of the world (literally), it makes it much easier to email than find a time we are all available to talk on the phone.
But at times, it is easier to talk on the phone and avoid confusion that way too. So there is a place for everything.
Yes, having a record of the conversation is a help. As a reporter, it’s the good news or bad news. Many government agencies now will not talk on the phone! They want everything in writing. Which can be terrific, or it can be very annoying…
DeleteThis is hilarious! We still have a landline which we rarely answer, and we each have a cell phone which I answer only if I recognize the number. I now text first to set up a phone call. My mother emails first from her iPad, then calls my cell for our daily chat. I mostly text with friends. At work, it’s mostly emails, until that gets too complicated, then it’s a phone call.
ReplyDeleteHank: your interns are my students — they don’t know how to have a conversation, and employers are feeling the pain of that missing skill. We are now redesigning our communication intro-level course to focus on developing self-awareness and interpersonal Comm skills.
Yes, and I love the idea of texting or emailing to set up a phone call. One thing that’s frustrating about the phone is that you have no control over when that call will come in, and it’s just often a terrible time.
Delete“Self-awareness and interpersonal comm skills”“can you believe that means talking to each other? whoa.
I know. Exactly!! Talking to each other f2f is becoming a lost art...
DeleteI like talking on the phone. My older son and I talk every week, and the younger every other week or so. One reason we keep the landline is that the sound quality is so much better. But yeah, we don't answer most calls on it because spam.
ReplyDeleteJulia - good move. Studies have shown even hands-free phone conversations are distracting to drivers.
Talking on the phone in the car! I just cannot do it while driving. But I do think while I am a passenger it can be very efficient.
DeleteTalking on the phone -- using it in ANY way, is illegal, at least in CA and OR and I imagine other states.
DeleteI would ditch our landline if my husband would allow it, but he's Urban Amish and complains that he doesn't trust our cell service out here. He has a point. But I only answer the house phone if I knew who's calling and if I'm not in the middle of words flowing on the page.
ReplyDeleteI confess, I generally prefer texting (or emailing) to phone calls, especially for business stuff. I like being able to document the "conversation." After a business phone call, I always find myself trying to remember what was said or if I heard something correctly, no matter how many notes I jot.
I’m surprised to hear how many people have given up their land lines! And I think your husband has a point...
DeleteI will talk on the phone if it rings and I recognize the number calling. I uniformly put the number of those people I know into the cell phone so when they call, their name comes up.
ReplyDeleteI was a devoted landline person as well, but after the need to get a new car, I had to finally ditch the landline after 45 years with the same phone number. The cost of the landline was converted to help pay for the car. I'd prefer the landline but its not an option.
But if I was forced to only communicate through email or text, etc. I think I'd go a little nuts.
I get so many spam phone calls! It is completely ridiculous. So annoying!
DeleteLike many of you, we ditched the landline ages ago. The only people we really talked to were family - and they all had Verizon cell phones so even back then those calls were free instead of paying long distance. We kept track of it for a month and it was something like 10 junk calls for every one good call. We pulled the plug and after determining that we'd missed nothing of note in a month, that was it. Well, cable companies technically kept insisting that a phone be part of the "triple play" package for cable, so I guess we had a number but no phone. And when we pulled the plug on cable, bye-bye phone line.
ReplyDeleteI generally prefer texting or emailing because it's easier to keep on point and, as Julia pointed out, keep the conversation brief. I only call my father when I have at least half an hour because he's one of those people who cannot wrap up a conversation.
But I have one friend it's a delight to call. We were friends in high school. Sadly, she has a daughter in elementary school, so she rarely has more than ten minutes (we were supposed to talk on my birthday and kept missing each other).
I screen my cell calls. If I don't recognize the number, it goes to voicemail. If it's a real person, leave a message and I'll add a contact. The latest version of iOS has a feature to automatically send unknown calls to VM.
Oh, and if you have enhanced 911 on your phone, EMS dispatchers can find you via GPS, although they still ask for location to narrow it down further or confirm. Our office phones used to be VOIP phones and the server was in Philly (we're in Pittsburgh). So if you dialed 911 from them, you'd get Philly dispatch. We kept two analog phones for the express purpose of being able to dial 911.
So many terrible stories about dispatchers not knowing where 911 callers are located. Terrifying!
DeleteMore frightening to me was getting EMS a full state away. When it happened, neither party knew, it was just "911 what's your emergency?" We didn't realize the problem until the dispatcher called back and said they couldn't find us. I did notice when I called 911 the other night that they identified themselves: "Allegheny County 911..." At least now they've been trained to ask for the address and a cross street.
DeleteAnd don't get me started on the people who text 911. Text!
I have ported my old landline number over to my cell, so the sentimental attachment I had to that number can carry forward, but the landline (and landline charge) is gone. But I share the pain the rest of you feel when trying to conduct business with young adults over the phone.
ReplyDeleteA while back we were short a clarinet player, and our conductor suggested we give one of his graduate students a try. He provided me with her e-mail address and her phone number. I called from the office phone (so caller ID would tell her it was the Dallas Winds calling) and also e-mailed her. Both messages clearly said I had a paying gig for her. She didn't respond to either one.
I didn't want to text her because I would have to use my personal phone for that, and I didn't want her to have my personal number or return my text at 3 am. I finally had to ask the department secretary track her down, at which point she informed me that she mostly communicated through Facebook Messenger.
I'm supposed to "friend" her on Facebook to offer her a one-time gig? And I'm supposed to psychically intuit that so I don't waste my time chasing her down through more conventional means? So my advice to young people who are unfamiliar with the business world, but who crave gainful employment, is simple. Remember that office phones are dumb phones. I have your phone number and your e-mail address. Monitor and answer at least one of them, m'kay?
She communicates by way of Facebook? That seems a little out there, I have to admit . How are you supposed to know that? I applied you for being so persistent, I have to say…
Delete"A while back we were shot a clarinet player" That's what I read. Thought how much more off topic can you get? LOL
DeleteDespite many temptations, Ann, we never shoot our clarinet players.
DeleteIt is pretty amazing that your Uber driver can find you but the EMTs can’t.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is so baffling. It is just a completely different system.
DeleteThe Lift driver knows to use back entrance of my complex when I need a ride. Back entrance is a completely different street.
DeleteWe got rid of our landline ages ago as well, and only answer calls we know. On the rare occasion something causes me to break that rule, I always end up with cause to regret it, and it reinforces my commitment to call screening. The only people I really talk on the phone with any more are my husband, son and sister. Oh, and occasionally if I am driving and get a text (which my car helpfully reads aloud to me) I might call the individual with a quick answer, because I can do that hands-free and I can't send a text hands free.
ReplyDeleteI work with many 20-somethings in my non-profit job, and most of them have no conversational skills. Even my 26-year-old son, who grew up in our very verbal household, has trouble with the whole give-and-take rhythm of natural conversation. He tends to either ramble on forever or sit in awkward silence. It's partly his personality, but I think it is also partly lack of practice. It will be interesting to see what our world is like when these non-conversationalists are running it.
Yes, when you answer one of those calls out of curiosity or forgetfulness :-) it’s always a Robo call. Once you answer, they know you are a real person, so you are doomed.
DeleteWe have a land line but have never given the number out. Nonetheless it rings all day. Once in a while we check for messages; on a couple of occasions old friends have found that number online somewhere.
ReplyDeleteIsn’t it astonishing when it is a real person? But hardly ever…
DeleteHank, that is exactly why I still have a landline. One winter the cell tower stopped working but the landline still worked (even though it's electric). Thank God I didn't need to call 911, but know I still could was a relief.
ReplyDeleteYup! Exactly! Xx
DeleteI keep my landline because it was my only way to communicate during the ice storms of 1998 when I've been out of power for 30 days. Out in the country with no way to charge a battery,I would not feel safe.
DeleteI also prefer to speak on a phone than on a cell and I won't answer if I don't know who is calling when looking at the caller id.
I mostly text on the cell as more and more people adopt this way of communication. The cell is also for emergencies on the road.
Haven't ever had a landline since I've been a gainfully employed adult. As a former reporter, I will still call people because I know I can usually get the answers i actually need faster/more clearly if I talk to somebody. On my cell, I don't answer unknown numbers. If it's important, they can leave a message and I will call back.
ReplyDeleteRight? If it is important, they will leave a message. I am a true believer in that. But you are so right, calling a person, and actually talking to them, can elicit so much more than an email!
DeleteAnd you don’t have to worry about the dreaded reply all.
I think I'm a mix. I do conduct a fair amount of business over the telephone (I do a lot of coaching-at-a-distance, and i can do it either via phone or via video). I'm comfortable doing it, but I know we're there for a reason, and a pre-arranged one at that. And I speak to my folks on the phone several times a week as they are in Florida. The only 2 sets of people who have my land line phone number that I would speak to are my parents and my in-laws.
ReplyDeleteThe point made above by Lucy Burdette about not getting someone by happenstance is a real thing, though, and I've been watching its impact in my family for a while. I see it as my parents and my in-laws end up having very limited "casual" relationships their children's spouses or their grandchildren because they're just not the ones answering the phones. Family from out of state call my father-in-law on his cell phone, and my mother-in-law feels very disconnected (no pun intended) from that family because she's just not in the loop. It may still feel a little intangible about where this leads to, but one thing for sure is it is very different from how we grew up and developed family relationships in the first place. Answering Machines and then Caller ID changed everything because it granted you the power to opt-out of interaction.
Yes, I talk to our grandchildren from time to time, on the phone I mean, but it still seems disconnected :-) I think they are just not used to a phone, versus email or texting or FaceTime.
DeleteKathy, you're so right about how it changes the family dynamic. I used to call my sister and her husband would answer. We'd talk for about ten minutes, and over the years we grew really fond of one another, even though we rarely actually met face to face. Group texting is a halfway measure. We do that a lot.
DeleteWe have a landline for 9-1-1 calls, but my cellphone is registered with the village for emergency texts (flooding, major fires). My kids call whenever (Mom, where are you? The meat counter at the grocery store, where else?) but I text to set up a phone call with them.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think that’s so respectful of their time, you know? That way you can talk when it is convenient for both of you. xxx
DeleteWe have a landline so both my wife and I can talk to our daughter when she calls Sunday night from Hawaii. I always answer the phone, even robocalls, because that strange number might be someone calling on church business or other things I'm involved in.
ReplyDeleteIf I saw Hank Phillippi Ryan on my phone's screen, you can bet your sweet bippy I'd answer it!
Awwwww thank you! But I think we have caller ID blocking. So I will text you first :-) when you answer those Robo calls, do you find you get more of them as a result?
DeletePhone are so frustrating where I live. I'm on a hill in the woods and basically cell phone do not work here so I never had a smart phone until several months ago when the salesman said I would always be able to send and receive texts. Except I can't. Luckily I still have a landline, except when it goes down and so that is when I would use a cell phone to contact them and while waiting for them to answer the recording tells me I can always contact them on the internet. Except the internet is dependent on the landline so that can be a problem.
ReplyDeleteRight now there is close to a foot of snow here, with much more expected. I keep my old dumb phone charged because if I have to call 911 I hope that will work. It was with a different carrier and if I went outside to use it I could often get through.
I think I went way off topic here. I would much rather talk on the phone than try to explain a problem via email. I'm never sure if they understand what I am getting at unless it is a very simple, clear cut question.
Judi, SO complicated! But I bet it is beautiful where you live. Still, you have to say where you are, okay?
DeleteWhile many of MY generation have simple cell phones, I have a top end LG Uber Smart phone. Yes we still have a land line and we use it daily. I call my siblings around the country, my kid brother in Xanth and cousins out on Long Island. I just feel more comfortable sitting back in my lounger with a PHONE in my hand while talking. It can be cathartic after a bad day calling a daughter or her calling me. We talk about what's going on (besides telling me when my next child pickup is) what she and her friends and local cousins are up to.
ReplyDeleteSo I don't think using the phone and talking is dying out altogether. But who knows.
Yes, if you have to talk, I think it's much more "comfortable" on a land line type phone. But maybe that's just habit...
DeleteThere are about 12,500 people living in my neighborhood. I bet we are the only people with out cell phones. This should change when I get my cochlear implant. At present I use a captioned telephone with the ringer off. When a call comes in the screen reads RING (much more soothing). We keep the phone for 911 emergencies however when the power goes off we are islands unto ourselves. We use the library computers to let everyone know we are okay. I wouldn't have a phone at all except several members in my family do not text. I do miss voice to voice communication, emoticons are not really good replacements for facial expressions, no?
ReplyDeleteCoralee, keep us posted, okay? xoxoo And I have to agree about emotions, but there are some really good ones..
DeleteSorry I am not a fan of landline phones. In these days, I had a BIG teletype machine for deaf, which meant that when I made calls, the other end had to have a teletype machine or I would have to use a teletype to voice Relay service and the operators did not always speak English, unfortunately. Yes, the teletype machine looks like the code machines used during the second world war! I saw it in a movie about Winston Churchill during the war.
ReplyDeleteSo I am grateful for the SMS capability of the mobile phone because I can send texts instead of asking people to make phone calls for me.
Although mobile phones are a godsend, I am aware of the dangers. NEVER text while driving! Someone mentioned talking on the phone while driving. Since I got my driver's license, I always focus on driving. I cannot talk while driving. Doubt it is an age thing, I think it has more to do with how important it is for me to scan the roads at all times.
Diana
OH, gosh, SO many people on the phone driving. Terrifying.
DeleteNot me.
DeleteI do wonder about the next generation of non-conversationalists. My parents were in sales, so I grew up knowing how to make and to answer phone calls in a professional manner. I still find it so much easier to resolve problems over the phone rather than email or text. Interestingly, my thirty-something daughter, who has to talk on the phone all the time for business, much prefers to text or Facebook message for personal things. She will call me if she's stuck in traffic or the drive-thru lane at the bank!
ReplyDeleteSo many options--but so agree about problem solving. There's so much that's lost in tone.
DeleteI agree completely with the folks who have mentioned the poor conversational/interpersonal skills of some young people. At work, there are a fair number of people in their early twenties--and they can't even make eye contact in the hallway, let alone a smile or a hello. I had one young woman actually turn her face to the wall like a Victorian housemaid when I said hello to her one day! Very strange, and not a good way to thrive professionally!
ReplyDeleteYikes. That is..very sad. xoo
DeleteWe use a landline at the house because cell service is hit or miss (our house cleaner sent me a text to say she was running ahead of schedule, I received it the next day). I carry a cell phone for emergencies and it is only on (silent mode) when I am out. My husband and I can't get out very much so phone conversations are very important.
ReplyDeleteThe next day! Okay, that's not how it's suppose to work.. :-) .
DeleteHank, so funny with those photographs you've included - I was in "Bye, Bye, Birdie" as tenn myself, and then saw another high school production multiple times when the Smithie was involved. As soon as I say those pictures, the song began running in my head. "What's the story, morning glory? What's tale, nightingale? Did you hear about Hugo and Kim?"
ReplyDeleteIt also takes me back to when I was a teen, and I would hit the phone so hard when I got home. When my sister got older, we would practically wrestle for control of the receiver. Our dad was one of the first people in our area to get the call waiting service - remember that? - and the rule was, when you heard another call beeping through, you had to HANG UP. It was probably the only way my folks would have ever gotten a phone call back then.
Teen, not tenn. I was pretty cute back in the day, but not a ten. :-)
DeleteThanks, Julia. I knew the play but couldn't remember the lyrics until you provided them, now I've got the tune stuck in my head.
DeleteI have been singing it ever sinceI posted! Did he pin the pin on, or was he too shy?
DeleteWhen I moved to this apartment I gave up my landline, truly a financial decision. Calling 911 from your cell you need to not only know your address/location but the closest cross street. Few years back I was assisting in a wedding, very hot day, our church is very old without air conditioning the building was packed and a guest collapsed. I was handed a cell, called 911, but the closest cross street was unknown to me. It's a short little street with an old lady social clubhouse on corner, a business and the parking lot of the EDD. I know the exact location of the church, and even remember to inform emergency dispatch to use Cherry Street if the emergency is not in the actual church but that little short street? Nope. This past Saturday night I not only gave my name and address but the nearest cross street automatically when I called 911 when someone tried to force their way into my apartment.
ReplyDeleteConversation and pronunciation seem to be lost. I work in a home care office and spend my day listening to "young" staff calling patients. They talk fast, way too soft and mumble. One has yet to figure out that I cannot understand her. She is the next cubical, stands up and mumbles, while smiling, at me. I usually need to turn of my fan and ask her to repeat, at least once more if not twice. While to are teaching the art of conversation, you might try pronunciation at the same time.
Someone tried to get into your apartment? I hope they didn't succeed, Deana!
DeleteDeana! What happened??
DeleteWhat did happen ? Are you OK ?
DeleteI am shaky but not physically hurt. Around midnight I heard some noise in my little patio, thought it was a possum that I had seen before. Two giant whacks on the door. I screammed, kept screaming while calling 911. After 25+ years in choir, I got a huge, loud voice when needed. No one got in, heavy metal door and three inch screws hold the faceplate for the deadlock blot. Door frame split so it needs to be fixed and I need a new door. I now have a heavy have padlock on my front gate, which is a pain in the rain but it is one more deterrent. Sleep is still a little hard. The ironic thing is that I was awake with my TV on. Whoever it was had to have seen it from the gate.
DeleteSO scary. ANd so strange... Glad you are okay-ish. xoxo But that person will NOT come back!
DeleteHoly cow, Deana. So glad you had both the volume and the breath to yell loudly. Not everyone can do that.
DeleteI'd have trouble sleeping, too! Hope the gate padlock helps.
We still have a land line, and we have a couple of old phones that need no electricity to use, kept in case of another ice storm or power outage like the one that shut down the easter seaboard a decade or so ago.
ReplyDeleteI hate talking on the phone, far prefer texting. My daughter and son in law have a whats app group set up, consists of friends and kids and grandmothers, and we spend a bit of time on that daily. It's fun and keeps everyone in the loop.
If I do call, it's usually facetime. I hate looking at me but love seeing the face of the caller!
As for FB messenger, I use that far more than e mail, reserving the latter for business letters etc. Messenger is free and easy and I get quick messages, often private responses to a post I made. My youngest son uses that exclusively, with me anyway. Debs and I have used it frequently, for this and that too. I think the advantage is this. When I check my FB, which I do a few times a day, I'm often reminded that I wanted to tell someone something, and I go straight to messenger. It also has the advantage of keeping my phone number out of the mix although I can't think of a FB friend that I would mind having my number.
Did any of that make sense?
It's our whole lives!
DeleteJulia, I also went right to the "Bye, Bye, Birdie" lyrics and music, too. Except my experience was with the original movie. Such a fun film.
ReplyDeleteWe still have a landline, the number of which is from about 1962. Every now and then we get a call from some octogenarian or nonagenarian friend of the family who does not do cell phones, but who still have that number written down in their physical address book. Plus, with all the hills in this part of Cincinnati we still have weird little dead zones for cell service.
However, I do talk on the phone occasionally, mostly with my nephew in Minnesota, and with my daughters. They all have long commutes, 40 minutes to over an hour, and that's when they tend to call me to check in. I used to talk to my mother a couple times a week at night, but lately she falls asleep so much earlier, now that she's creeping up to 90.
On the landline I added a service from the phone company called Call Reveal, which is part of their package of services that includes voicemail and caller ID. It requires the caller to input one more digit before it allows the call to complete. Robo callers and auto dialers cannot do this, so it stops almost all spam calls. It's an especially appreciated service around election season!
Oh, and like Ann, I keep an old-style non-electric phone around, in case of power outages. Cell phones also rely on power, eventually, after all.
DeleteYes, when there's a storm, I charge everything like mad. It would be really hard for me to give up the landline. SO funny how many people have done it!
DeleteSometimes caller ID doesn't even save you from telemarketers. I get a lot of calls from random numbers in my small town's exchange and don't answer them because there's no name attached. But this morning I got a call supposedly from someone I know -- and it was a recording from a telemarketer! Time to ditch the house phone.
ReplyDeleteOh, they are SO deceptive! It's scary how they put in "names" that sound like someone who might call you.
DeleteChris, see if your local phone company has Call Reveal, or something like it. It's especially for those recordings, and for the robo dialers with phone bank people.
DeleteThe caller hears a recording that asks them to press one more digit (an 8 in our case), in order to be connected. Real human beings can do this, but the auto dialers can't. At least not yet.
It's included in the same group of features as Voicemail and Caller ID with Cincinnati Bell.
We have a landline which I would dearly love to get rid of. My little brother calls me on it. We get some professional calls on it. The rest is pure spam. I hate the interruption when that phone goes off! My sister and I will text, especially during shows we're both watching. That can be very entertaining. On occasion I'll decide our exchange has gotten too long and stupid so I'll call her and we'll yak on our cell phones for quite a while. My long phone calls catching up with friends are pretty infrequent and valued for just that reason. I could live happily without a phone for the most part. When friends call my husband's cell he puts it on speaker so we can all gab at the same time. That actually works pretty well! Oh well. Got to get ready to go. My husband is having cataract surgery on one eye this morning. Been there, done that.
ReplyDeleteGood luck to your husband! He will love it, right? oxo
DeleteShalom Reds and fans. I am one of those people who can barely remember what we did before we had cell phones, much less smart phones. But I’ll admit I only use the phone to talk rarely, maybe three or four times a day. And not chatty longer calls. When my dad was alive, he wanted me to call once a week. So I would call when I could. Now that he’s gone, I call my stepmom once every 18 days or so. If she’s not preoccupied, she can carry a conversation for a good 30 to 45 minutes.
ReplyDeleteI remember being a teenager and having a girlfriend. We would talk on the phone after ten and for hours. The phone was a solitary kitchen wall phone with an ultra-long telephone cord that reached to the couch in the living room. It was before call-waiting and anyone else calling in to us would get a busy signal. I remember my first very own house phone. It was touch-tone, had caller id, call waiting, call forwarding, and three-way calling. We had three phones in a small apartment.
At some point, doctors and other very important people started using mobile phones. They were called car phones and were hooked up in your car with an antenna for all to see. The doctors carried a bag, which was no longer for their stethoscope and such but for their phone. It was all out of my price range.
My first years working, I worked in communications. I worked for a large brokerage firm which used a very primitive antecedent to email and data entry. A few years later found me working the phones as a customer service rep. Making and receiving phone calls, usually in the afternoon or early evening was about 50% of my work load. I learned how to be cheerful and polite, engage in small talk a bit, document names addresses and telephone numbers and leave the customer with a sense that you were going to personally attend to his order.
A lot of water under the bridge since then. When the iPhone first came out, I was skeptical as well as awed at the purchase price. One late afternoon, I was on the road with a friend and we were running late. His business was electronics and he had fit the whole family with iPhones. We need to use the GPS and because he was driving he handed the phone to me and told me use Google Maps. Well, I had no idea how to type on its tiny virtual keyboard. And somehow, we nevertheless, got to our coveted appointment.
. Later in the evening or the next day, his son (about 10 at the time) showed me his 1-1/2-minute video (on his iPhone) using “Claymation” stop action photography. Like Davie and Goliath. Today, I love the cameras on my smartphone. Before this, photography was a just too expensive hobby. I now am always ready to take a picture. The Android that I use today, finally has storage large enough that I never have to delete stuff to fit other stuff in. And most of the features are very intuitive to use.
ReplyDeleteI don’t have a landline. My mobile number hasn’t changed in over 20 years. I have three or four friends that I can call and chat with. I have two close friends, twins, who only like to text. So one, who lives three hours’ drive away, I text with daily. We have the same model phone without storage limitations, so I send her long and involved texts. She sends me back pictures. We talk in person when she comes to town and we share pizza.
Now, I’m in the habit of picking up each and every call on the second ring if possible and saying Hello?, even if I already know who it is. I’ve had two robocalls in the last month or so, in Mandarin or Cantonese. I listened because I was curious. Usually I just hang up. I have a program called “Should I Answer?” which screens my calls and sends many of the them directly to voicemail. Since using this app, the volume of my annoying spam calls has dropped precipitously. I’m not sure why but who’s arguing with success.
I give my phone number and email address out all over the place. And most everyone does not abuse the privilege. Sometimes, I answer the SMS with STOP and sometimes I hit the “unsubscribe” button which usually quiets the activity.
I rarely use Skype. I’m not sure why, except that most of my friends are not interested in video calls. For a while, I was studying Hebrew with an Israeli company which used WebEx, a platform designed for video conferencing. I did it for about 3 years and I have the recordings of those classes in the cloud somewhere. It became too expensive but I should really go back and look for those recordings. The classes were in Hebrew and English as a backup but the students were all over the world and I even found one who was a friend of my brother and sister-in-law. For someone who isn’t “chatty” I certainly used up my share of oxygen this morning.
SO fascinating! And I do think if you answer robo calls, it lets them know you are a person, and they will call more..
DeleteAnd I do agree--I hate skype. Everyone looks so awful!
We haven't had a land line for some years now. I do get nostalgic when I think of the land line growing up. Waiting to see if the call was for you, if it was who you hoped it would be. And, we had a little telephone table with a stool that tucked in underneath it. I now have that as my nightstand in my bedroom.
ReplyDeleteI recently did a FaceTime with a friend, but I wasn't crazy about it. I would rather someone imagine me as in one of my pictures where I'm dressed nicely than what I usually look like at home. That would be different for my children or granddaughters, but they don't do FaceTime. Don't you have to have an iPhone for it? I do, but they don't. I can see the usefulness of FaceTime, but I just haven't gotten acclimated to it yet.
I don't answer the phone if I don't know who is calling, except if the area code is the same as my son, who lives further away than my daughter, and I get the worries that he might be calling from someone else's phone in an emergency. My daughter would think to text to tell me she was using another phone. Hahaha! My disorganized child vs. my organized one. But, the strangest number I've been getting lately on my phone, which I don't answer, is 1-000-000=0000. Anyone else get that one?
I do prefer talking on the phone to lengthy texting. I get tired of typing, and while I'm a fast typist on the computer, I'm a slow, clumsy texter on my phone. Sometimes, my daughter and I will be texting, and one of us will quit and just call. I know that there are many people who prefer texting, but I'm not one, unless it's a short message.
EXACTLY! Why do I have to get dressed up for a phone call? Any number you don't know--don't answer. easy one. xoxo
DeleteAnd I text, and love it, but I dictate. Have you tried that? It's fab--but risky--you have to proofread or it could be relationship-ending!
I will try the dictating, Hank. That sounds like a good alternative. Of course, as you say, proofreading might be essential. Hahaha!
DeleteHave a landline. This luddite just can't get comfortable talking on a cell. But, email and text are preferred. However, just spent an hour plus on the landline trying to recover access to my email which ceased to respond yesterday. Am expecting a call back about the recovered access on Wednesday. Never answer either cell or landline unless I recognize the call ID. Mostly use text and email as most of my friends are younger and it is easier for us to check in that way.
ReplyDeleteOh, no, Elisabeth! Good luck! Ahhhhh...so frustrating!
DeleteOld fashioned as I am, I far prefer face-to-face or voice-to-voice communication. We no longer answer our landline, so leave a message. No message from someone we want to speak with, no call back. I have a cell, but carry it only when I absolutely have to, and NEVER have it at hand in the car. It's either in the trunk or the glove compartment, but most of the time it's at home on the charger. However, that landline is the number all of the people who need to contact us have, such as utilities, doctors, friends. I get three or four calls a month on my cell, allmost all spam.
ReplyDeleteTexting? Only back and forth with my wife. Otherwise I think it's...rude. (the crowd erupts in angry bellows) Plus, since I do not have/use Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or any of the rest, obviously I don't communicate the way, nor do I want to, or need to. If you'd like to talk to me, knock on the door or call the landline.
Got it! And your life sounds very peaceful....
DeleteI love my landline even though it does get spam calls, mostly because I have phones upstairs and downstairs so there is a better chance of answering it. I answer all the calls unless I see a number with an area code that I don't know on the TV. I text 2 friends every day and others sometimes, and I like e-mail and Facebook. It is nice to call and talk because it seems more personal.
ReplyDeleteHAnk here: It does! xoxo
DeleteI have a landline (although it's actually a satellite line tied to my satellite internet) only for my day job. After that, it goes off and I'm on my hot spot and cell phone. Other than work 99.9% of the calls I get on my landline are spam. I do keep in touch with some friends via phone - cell phone. I love it because it's multilingual - I can talk, or text, or email. That's my idea of fully functional.
ReplyDeleteI have to laugh these days when I remember how hard I fought to have an extension in my room and how much I envied my friends who had their own lines - listed in the telephone book as teen phone - at least in NJ.
Hank here: OH, remember? I REALLY wanted a princess phone. I did not get one. (I decided they were tippy, anyway.) . xoxoo
DeleteI've never enjoyed talking on the phone except for real-time information needs. Even right out of college, I often didn't answer the phone if I was busy. I love texting. It's immediate. It's informative. I wondered what was up with young people who mumble and have strange pronunciation. I don't have hearing problems, but I was just in LA and found lots of young people who had very strange communication skills. I hate to say, "WHAT?" but did find myself saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you said." And then they would say the same thing in the same garble (this was not a foreign accent issue--it was LA young American talk). I don't attribute it to the phone, though. I think it's something else. But what?
ReplyDelete