These days, are 80 percent of your phone conversations rushed, choppy, awkward social disasters? Or is it just me?
I'm not sure people are getting worse in face-to-face communication thanks to the dominance of e-mail and other e-communications, but I do think we are losing the ability to talk graciously and gracefully and productively on the phone.
I've never liked the phone; you and your conversant have to react to one another in real time with the benefit of only one stimulus—sound.
And now that everybody sucks at it, I like it even less.
How about you?
Dave,
I have not liked the phone since I started my career. I use it all day at work so the last thing I want to do at home is use it again, unless I have to do so.
Whenever the phone rang in my childhood home, my dad would bellow angrily: “WHO COULD THAT BE?”
I know just how he felt: I’m home! Leave me alone!
It’s funny that we used to say “Hell no, I’ll never get a mobile phone. Why would I want people to contact me anywhere, anytime?”
I think we were just identifying how much we hate talking in 2 dimensions. Nowadays, of course, mobility trumps. We better respond to emergencies, send photos instantenously to family, or in this commenter’s case, type out comments to blog posts on my phone.
I abhor the phone. I’d much rather communicate through writing.
Trust communicators not to like the phone. We need the time to consider our thoughts and edit a couple of times before replying. The phone is too instant for me, particularly in the professional realm.