March 24, 2011

The death of the telephone?

I read an interesting article yesterday, entitled "Don't Call Me, I Won't Call You."  It talked about the change in the telephone's role in our culture these days, how many people would rather use text messaging or email instead of calling someone on the phone.  Now, I'll admit, I may be a little biased on this topic.  I grew up in the Age of the Telephone-- before email, when "text messaging" was done on a pager (do they even make pagers anymore?).  If you wanted to get in touch with someone, you called, and the advent of call waiting was a Godsend for teenagers like me all over the country.

These days, even my family prefers electronic communication to the phone.  My sister operates almost exclusively off Facebook, and I haven't heard her voice since December, when we all met up for Christmas at my parents' house, in person.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all about electronic communication (this is a blog after all!), but I still have to say that there's something about hearing a voice on the other end of the line that email, texting, Facebook and Twitter just can't deliver.  I'll tweet the latest news, post hellos and lunch invites on my friends' walls, and email till the cows come home, but for me, phone calls are simply more personal, and they allow your conversation to take twists and turns that it couldn't possibly maneuver around in a text message.  This is especially great when talking with my wonderful clients-- all the delightful details of their weddings come to life during our conversations, and it would take a novel of emails to describe the excitement and magic of their wedding day vision.

So, call me old-fashioned, but I still love the telephone.  :)


Happy Thursday!

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