Did Twitter Kill The Phone Call?

A while back we asked your opinion on texting and if you thought it was a curse or a cure. Whichever side you fell on, the fact is that texting overtook calling sometime back in 2008. 43% of the young demographic that is driving cell phone sales report that their main reason for getting a phone is to be able to text. Techcrunch talked about this issue a few days ago and since we have talked about it before and are texters ourselves, we decided to look at the reasons why we do it and why its taking over.

Teens are sending an average of 6 texts for every hour they are awake and the shift might just be thanks to Twitter. Twitter wasn’t the first, but it brought text-based communication to the center of our world. With other social media outlets on top of that, and the nature of being online, we have become even more comfortable with text-based communications.

The norms for deciding to call versus text are shifting. For the millenial generation, a call looks urgent. It is something that interrupts whatever they are doing and requires an adjustment to take care of. Whereas as a call to my grandpa might be a welcome, leisurely, and enjoyable experience for him, a younger generation looks at phone calls as more of a burden and prefers text communication for things that are not urgent.

Voice mail tools and apps are making our phones less about calling and more about communicating like we do on the computer through social media (i.e. Twitter). Texting allows the recipient to decide when the best time to respond is makes it possible to get a message with less interruption.  On the other side, some make the case that texting is more intrusive because texts can batter you all day and you have to spend the time hammering out responses on a little keyboard.

If you look at the Nielsen data, and look at trends in ages, you can see that this issue is sharply divided by age. The younger generation growing up on social media, texts, and smartphones aren’t calling anyone a whole lot, while the older demographic prefers voice communication. Certainly, the type of communication that needs to be done plays a role in the method of communication you use, I love texting, but its still not O.K. to go all Joe Jonas and break up with Taylor Swift via text.

Isn’t it great to look at your phone and see a quick little message from someone and know what is going on than to have to bother with dialing into your voicemail box, punching in the code, and then listening to your friend try to awkwardly talk to your message machine? Is it just a generational thing that makes me hate voice mail?

To be honest, I only check my voice mail so I can clear the little notification thingy on my screen. The phone call may never actually die, it is important and offers things text can’t, but texting is certainly the communication mode of the future. Do you think there will ever be a phone that doesn’t even make calls or just uses a text and data plan?

Wait…iPhone on AT&T’s network. Just kidding! (LOL). Whatever method you prefer, we would love for you to get in touch with us, we’ll talk to you in the comments, over the phone, email, Twitter, Facebook, you name it. Get into one of our social media classes and see just how much and how fast the world is changing and how you or your business can benefit from it.

Don’t text and drive! But really, don’t!