Phone calls are becoming an endangered species

Phone calls are becoming an endangered species

Ian Shapira
The Washington Post
Aug. 08, 2010

Jane Beard and Jeffrey Davis didn't realize how little they speak to their children by phone until they called AT&T to switch plans. The customer service agent was breathless. The Silver Spring, Md., couple had accumulated 28,700 unused minutes.

"None of the kids call us back! They will not call you back," said Beard, a former actress who with her husband coaches business leaders on public speaking.

E-mail and texting have driven the telephone conversation into serious decline, creating new tensions between baby boomers and millennials -- those in their teens, 20s and early 30s.

Nearly all age groups are talking on the phone less; boomers in their mid-50s and early 60s are the only ones still yakking as they did when Ma Bell was America's communications queen. But the fall of the call is driven by 18- to 34-year-olds, whose average monthly voice minutes have plunged from about 1,200 to 900 in the past two years, according to research by Nielsen. Texting among 18- to 24-year-olds has more than doubled in the same period, from an average of 600 messages a month two years ago to more than 1,400 texts a month.

Young people say they avoid voice calls because the immediacy of a phone call strips them of the control they have over the arguably less-intimate pleasures of texting, e-mailing, Facebooking or tweeting. They even say phone calls are by their nature impolite, more of an interruption than the blip of an arriving text.

Kevin Loker, 20, a rising junior at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., said he and his school friends rarely just call someone for fear of being seen as rude or intrusive. First, they text to make an appointment to talk. "They'll write, 'Can I call you at such-and-such time?'" said Loker, executive editor of Connect2Mason.com, a student media site. "People want to be polite. I feel like, in general, people my age are not as quick on their feet to just talk on the phone."

Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University who studies how people converse in everyday life, said older generations misinterpret the way younger people use their cellphones. "One student told me that it takes her days to call her parents back and the parents thought she was intentionally putting them off," she said. "But the parents didn't get it. It's the medium. With e-mails, you're at the computer, writing a paper. With phone calls, it's a dedicated block of time."

Ethan Seidel, rabbi of Tifereth Israel synagogue in Washington, D.C., can't get many of his congregants younger than 35 on the telephone. Seidel, 52, often invites young new members to his family's home for welcome dinners, but his gesture too often doesn't even merit return calls. "One member seemed only slightly apologetic for not returning the call," Seidel said. "I was floored by that. They say, 'I never answer the phone anymore.'"

People are not only making fewer calls but also having shorter conversations when they do call. The average length of a cellphone call has dropped from 2.38 minutes in 1993 to 1.81 minutes in 2009, according to industry data.

Land lines are disappearing. Verizon, the nation's second-largest land line carrier, behind AT&T, says its hard-wired phone connections have dropped from 50 million in 2005 to 31 million this year.

TexasBlue wrote:

Land lines are disappearing. Verizon, the nation's second-largest land line carrier, behind AT&T, says its hard-wired phone connections have dropped from 50 million in 2005 to 31 million this year.

This has had great impact on the environment. Bees are believed to be confused by cell phone waves, leading to them not being able to return to their hive. And that's a huge problem for us humans, seeing that bees are responsible for many of our food sources, even ones you wouldn't think about. I'm not quite sure on the number of bites we take that gets traced back to 1 bee, but I'm sure Matt can weigh in on that.

Oh, i see. I guess we can look forward to cell phones ban legislation next.

Only in an extreme emergency. What we'll most likely see is more research of how to transmit cell phone signals without interfering with the bees.
But if nothing can be found and bees continue to die, there has to be a ban because humanity can simply not survive without bees. That, of course, won't matter to some right-wingers who will then claim it's another gov't take over. I believe 1 out of 3 bites we take comes from bees, and if we're out of that 1 out of 3 bites we're screwed. I think banning cellphones is a better alternative than not having apple juice, bread, potatoes, etc.

BubbleBliss wrote:
Only in an extreme emergency. What we'll most likely see is more research of how to transmit cell phone signals without interfering with the bees.
But if nothing can be found and bees continue to die, there has to be a ban because humanity can simply not survive without bees. That, of course, won't matter to some right-wingers who will then claim it's another gov't take over. I believe 1 out of 3 bites we take comes from bees, and if we're out of that 1 out of 3 bites we're screwed. I think banning cellphones is a better alternative than not having apple juice, bread, potatoes, etc.

If one can prove without a doubt that this is actually real, then the cell folks will have to develop new technology. But i just read some stuff on this and there's not very much study done (widespread).

Like I said, I'll let Matt weigh in on this, he has more knowledge on this subject.

Yes, honey bees have become my "cause of the moment" but I think that the phone signal argument is a media storm with very little to support it. Bubblebliss is absolutely right about one thing though, if the honeybee dies out, we ARE screwed, and that is not emotive left wing rhetoric, we rely on their product for most of our staple crops.

The loss of bees is a very serious problem, nobody is denying that it needs a lot of research as the actual cause is still a mystery but it is easy just to brush it off and say "so what? They're only bees!". The loss of bees has a very real precedent that we can measure against any potential worldwide collapse. A particularly poisonous pesticide caused the extinction of honeybees in one region of China that relied on bees to pollinate pear trees. Now, a million people are required every year to pollinate by hand and they cannot produce anywhere near the volumes that bees produced. Now, imagine having to hand-pollinate EVERY crop we eat and use? Couldn't be done, you'd never find the manpower to keep up this level of consumption.

The problem of Colony Collapse Disorder seems to be a combination of parasite (the varroa mite causes neurological confusion), climate change and some pesticides. I may have already started a post on this, I'll go back and have a look. If I haven't then I will start one soon.

I think some research is in store for cell phone makers.

Personally, i don't even own one and haven't since 1997. I have no need for it (nor the money right now).

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

The loss of bees is a very serious problem, nobody is denying that it needs a lot of research as the actual cause is still a mystery but it is easy just to brush it off and say "so what? They're only bees!". The loss of bees has a very real precedent that we can measure against any potential worldwide collapse. A particularly poisonous pesticide caused the extinction of honeybees in one region of China that relied on bees to pollinate pear trees. Now, a million people are required every year to pollinate by hand and they cannot produce anywhere near the volumes that bees produced. Now, imagine having to hand-pollinate EVERY crop we eat and use? Couldn't be done, you'd never find the manpower to keep up this level of consumption.

There's enough Mexicans to manually pollinate every crop here.

But all joking aside, you're right. It's a serious issue that definitely needs more research!

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

The problem of Colony Collapse Disorder seems to be a combination of parasite (the varroa mite causes neurological confusion), climate change and some pesticides. I may have already started a post on this, I'll go back and have a look. If I haven't then I will start one soon.

But that's a different problem than what the cell phones are believed to cause, right? I remember reading that cell phone signals are believed to disorient bees making it impossible to find their way back to their hive.

TexasBlue wrote:I think some research is in store for cell phone makers.

Personally, i don't even own one and haven't since 1997. I have no need for it (nor the money right now).

You're gonna have a rude awakening when you buy a new phone. A lot of things have changed since 1997. Mainly, you can carry them in your pocket now, not in your backpack.

I don't own a cell phone, I just use my girlfriends. We have the same circle of friends and I spend most of my day with her so there's really no need to have my own cell phone right now.

BubbleBliss wrote:You're gonna have a rude awakening when you buy a new phone. A lot of things have changed since 1997. Mainly, you can carry them in your pocket now, not in your backpack.

I don't own a cell phone, I just use my girlfriends. We have the same circle of friends and I spend most of my day with her so there's really no need to have my own cell phone right now.

No need to tell me that. Everyone i know has one. Back when i had mine, it was the size of a small walkie-talkie.

I don't own one other than the fact that i'm single. No kids, nothing. The only time i'd need one is if i had an accident. But even then, everyone else has one, so they can call the coroner instead of my dead ass..

BubbleBliss wrote:But that's a different problem than what the cell phones are believed to cause, right? I remember reading that cell phone signals are believed to disorient bees making it impossible to find their way back to their hive.

From what I understand, empty hives, sudden mass deaths and premature swarming are all cited as symptoms of mobile phone interference but I don't think the theory is taken seriously. All of those things are indicative of Colony Collapse Disorder.

TexasBlue wrote:No need to tell me that. Everyone i know has one. Back when i had mine, it was the size of a small walkie-talkie.

Like this?



Or this?

LMAO!

A little smaller than the one in the top picture.