Telephone-Disconnect?

by admin on September 1, 2009

Besides the obvious pun of the post title,  am I the only one that feels communication culture has changed significantly because of the Internet, and in particular to be much less receptive to using the phone? I used to be quite a regular phone user and enjoyed the good chat with my friends, keeping in touch with the family and business associates. It seems that after the adoption of e-mail and later Instant Messaging technologies I got spoiled by the time-shifted breathing room and add something when you have something to add nature of IM in particular. The phone started to seem much more pushy and obnoxious. Oddly many of the early contacts I had on Skype were either Chinese-speaking business associates evenly split between English IM chats and voice chats (in Chinese) or with podcaster friends where we primarily IM text chatted (in English) and the occasional voice chat (also in English but used much podcaster jargon) but that was like for special occasions.

My timing is impeccable because it seems that Skype is now going to change hands. Skype is still frequently used by me, more for voice than IM with GTalk being more for IM but now adding voice-confusing?  Now with the addition of Twitter it seems the urgency to voice chat is lower still. I do really enjoy talking with people in real time face to face though.

One last thought I had-it’s much harder to multi-task with someone on the phone. With IM or Twitter or e-mail (the least time sensitive of the group) it seems well suited to the ADD drift where you start browsing links or other web content while messaging with web friends. You certainly can’t get away with spacing out like that in a face to face conversation… Did I mention Facebook?

Comments especially welcome on this post.

PS-According to TechCrunch E-Bay did better than most people think on Skype deal.

  • JaiGuru
    THANK YOU!

    Yes, as a teenager, I spent ridiculous amounts of time on the phone. I adored getting calls when I was not with my friends. But, now, long after the advent of the www and proliferation of pc's into the American way of life, I actually find the phone to be pretty obnoxious. I have taken to refusing to even answer the thing more often than not. When I do, I expect conversations to be more or less brief and very to-the-point.

    On the other hand, and this may just prove that I'm too wierd for my own good, I also find it distressing that voice chat seems to be difficult to initiate with my family-friend circle. I want more of that as I do not find it the least bit disturbing to talk to my comp's mic while using StumbleUpon or reading news.
  • bbluesman
    JG-thanks for stopping by and commenting. Glad to know there are some others out there that have noticed changes in communication pattern/behavior.
  • I seldom use my phone to make calls anymore. It's all email, im, and skype on the weekends. I also find the phone incredibly interruptive and used to ask people to send their calls to voicemail while we tried to get work done. Due to all the calls we were getting we would be putting in 12 hour days to finish 6 hours worth of work. Their is nothing worse than getting into the flow only to have to answer the phone.

    Of course, never answering my phone causes some problems for some people (my wife in particular) but hopefully they will forgive and send an email.
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