phone calls
A journalist from Kanal 24 just called me, hoping that I could verify her hypothesis that we spend less time on the phone because we spend more time communicating through other means (texting, IM). I couldn't give her a definitive answer. There are just too many variables at play here. My informants often claim that they would prefer to call their friends if money was no issue. But they are young, and there's no doubt young people spend more time socializing than older users. If you're a busy grown-up professional with family obligations, there's hardly too much time chatting on the phone? Clearly texting and IM are pretty flexible (and hence valuable) communicating-tools for users with little time to spare. Actually I doubt that we are spending less time on the phone (statistics are welcome, Norsk Mediebarometer does not say anything about time spent on the phone). When 92% of Norwegians (2005) have their own cell-phone, it seems unlikely that we spend less time on the phone.
I'm not particularly fond of talking on the phone myself, though I spend a lot of time talking to Lasse (who now works in Hamar during the week). We have time to talk, there's a geographical distance between us, and the telephone supports a level of intimacy consonant with the bond we share.
No wonder I wasn't able to answer her question.
Labels: communication
2 Comments:
it seems that young people do prefer texting rather than talking on the phone (see Personal, Portable, Pedestrian edited by Mizuko Ito for some relevant stats in the Japanese context), and you're right in that there are lots of variables to consider. I guess, timewise, of course talking on the phone - once the most dominant form of communication - decreases when people have other means to achieve the same purpose/s. My quick response to the wildly high use of texting would be convenience and cost. Convenience as in it's simpler somtimes to just send a short message (to one person or more) rather than calling someone, and sometimes you just can't make a voice call because of the environment you are, or the other person is in. Also txting is cheaper than calling :) But this is only my very quick response and there are a myriad of reasons, as you said.
You're quite right Jaz, and I think some people do talk less on the phone than before. Besides, when users earlier had to call someone just for a message that could have been conveyed by a brief SMS, the conversation easily tended to last for somewhat longer. The journalist did pose an interesting question, which has a lot to do with interplays between forms of communication.
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