Email vs the Telephone

Last weekend, I was introduced firsthand to the future of our electronic culture of communication, and how the telephone is fading fast.

I discussed with co-workers what their Thanksgiving plans were. One woman has a husband and two grown daughters, and she used to travel for Thanksgiving when the kids were young, but now she appreciates celebrating the day in her own home.

I asked her if she had any relatives living out of state. "Well, I have a sister in Nevada and a sister in California," she said. "For many years, we wouldn't make long distance phone calls very much due to the cost, but now with email we can stay in contact more…
I thought I was listening to a proponent of email, but her message did a U-turn…. "so it seems less important to have that face-to-face interaction, which is sad," she continued. "I'd like to go back to the old days [and pick up the phone]."

The old days. I'd like to go back to them, too, and I am not that old. The days when most people used an inside telephone connected by wire to an outside phone line. Increasingly, people are eliminating this "land line" in favor of a cellular phone.

I am not completely crowning the phone and denouncing email. We all know it has had a profoundly positive impact, for the most part, on the working world.
My point is that email falls short when it comes to personal conversation.

I recently visited an old college friend of mine, he was the best man at my wedding and
we have remained good friends over a long period. It has been a tradition for him to give me, before I leave his house, current magazines he no longer reads.

When I got home after my long car ride, I reminded myself to send him an email in part to thank him for inviting us to visit him, his wife and newborn child. In the email I ended up getting into sports talk, the latest movies, and what I read about in the magazines he gave me regarding our favorite musical artist, etc. just like we used to.

His reply: "Thanks for visiting us. Michelle and I really enjoyed having you. See Ya."
Brief and terse. So I spilled my guts about the things we used to talk about back in our college days, and that was what I received in return?

His reply: "Thanks for visiting us. Michelle and I really enjoyed having you. See Ya."
Brief and terse. So I spilled my guts about the things we used to talk about back in our college days, and that was what I received in return?

Email allows us brevity so we can rush onto our hurried lives. I feel my relationship with him fading but not due to growing apart, because we are both fathers now. It is fading due to the brevity that email affords him.

Good relationships, like the one with "John", are slowly nurtured over time. One thing that builds them is a good, long phone call, which can be good for the soul. However, a lengthy email is balked at-and sometimes skimmed over or not read at all because its too long.

A couple years ago, I remember at the end of a phone call we discussed who will follow up with whom to keep in touch, he said: "Just email me. I don't really use phones much anymore." I don't use phones much anymore. I didn't like hearing that.

I was so happy the last time he called me and I was home to receive the call, that I wrote down the date in my planner. (On this day in history, John actually picked up the phone and called me…). It was January, 2006. He told me that he was going to become a father for the first time. Perhaps that is why he chose to use the telephone as his mode of communication. "John" was filled with pride, excitement, and joy. Above all, though, the reason he called is he wanted a reaction from me. Email couldn't give him that.

Another co-worker told me about her holiday plans. They included a party for a friend of her family's. That family's father and her father were good friends and stayed close for thirty years. One thing that connected them was the telephone. She would remember phone conversations about fishing, hunting, and how it would turn to politics, religion, and before you knew it, they were on the telephone for 3 hours of more.

"I distinctly remember one night, my Dad called Cliff at ten o'clock, and they stayed on the phone till three in the morning. The funny thing is, they lived across the lake from each other. But you would never walk over to their house to talk, because it would wake everyone up." She recalled these details as if they were a fond memory. How many of our emails, given or received, can we honestly say have been memorable?

Chats on internet chat rooms are like a phone call through a computer, but it's a place where few social graces are in effect. One can abruptly exit a chat, without indicating so, or saying goodbye. On the other hand, most of us could never leave an uninteresting phone call by abruptly hanging up. Its polite to drop hints that we have to leave the call, or we try to "hurry" someone off the other line. Phone calls have a way of making us feel obligated to courtesy, or tied in emotionally.

Cellular phones, with airtime that can get out of control cost-wise, are also contributing to our brevity in communication. But even a cell phone, if only marginally, can capture the beauty of the spoken word.

It was Maya Angelou that stated: "Do read to someone. When words are infused by the human voice, they come alive."

So it goes with talking, because talking is reading from your mind. Humans have unique voices-a trademark of oneself. Saying "hi" is an art. Saying "hello" has power.

Of course, it saves us a lot of time to send email rather than a phone call. How adorable, though, and meaningful, it is to grandma when a young grandchild calls her up-even if its nonsensical gibberish-it's the sweet sound that counts.

I remember one of the more memorable, and successful television commercials of the 1980's by AT&T, extolling the virtues of a long distance phone call. "Reach out, reach out and touch someone…." How true it is. We can't "touch" with electronic mail.

With the escalation of email and the trimming of the telephone, what will become of our society in this new culture of communication? Will we become more "heartless"?

School districts are sending out electronic report cards. Does this mean the time to discuss your child's marks will be shortened, as well? Will this domino effect spill over to the parent-teacher conferences? Maybe the graduation speeches at commencement can be sent to everyone in an email so we can skip the drawn-out ceremony. This may become widely accepted in our burgeoning culture of brief communication.

You've probably figured out that I am what you would call a talker. Call me sensitive, gushy, old-fashioned, whatever you want. In fact, do precisely that. Call me.