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"I ... am not interested in receiving messages that resemble the lyrics to a Prince song, wt r u doing b4 lunch? Uh, no thanks." Lynn in DC, DC Latest in My Network 1. Security Firm Is Vague on Its Compromised Devices WORLD U.S. N.Y. / REGION BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HEALTH SPORTS OPINION ARTS STYLE TRAVEL JOBS REAL ESTATE AUTOS Readers' Comments povlhenningsen All Recommendations 5. David Rumelhart Dies at 68; Created Computer Simulations of Perception COMMENTS (241) [email protected]
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19/03/11 22.56Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You - NYTimes.com
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"I ... am not interested inreceiving messages thatresemble the lyrics to a Princesong, wt r u doing b4 lunch?Uh, no thanks."
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CULTURAL STUDIES
Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call YouPublished: March 18, 2011
(Page 2 of 2)
Phone call appointments have become common in the workplace.
Without them, there’s no guarantee your call will be returned. “Only
people I’ve ruthlessly hounded call me back,” said Mary Roach,
author of “Packing for Mars.” Writers and others who work alone
can find the silence isolating. “But if I called my editor and agent
every time I wanted to chat, I think they’d say, ‘Oh no, Mary Roach
is calling again.’ So I’ve pulled back, just like everyone else.”
Whereas people once received and
made calls with friends on a regular
basis, we now coordinate such events
via e-mail or text. When college
roommates used to call (at least two reunions ago), I
would welcome their vaguely familiar voices. Now, were
one of them to call on a Tuesday evening, my first reaction
would be alarm. Phone calls from anyone other than
immediate family tend to signal bad news.
Receiving calls on the cellphone can be a particular
annoyance. First, there’s the assumption that you’re carrying the thing at all times. For
those in homes with stairs, the cellphone siren can send a person scrambling up and
down flights of steps in desperate pursuit. Having the cellphone in hand doesn’t
necessarily lessen the burden. After all, someone might actually be using the phone:
someone who is in the middle of scrolling through a Facebook photo album. Someone
who is playing Cut the Rope. Someone who is in the process of painstakingly touch-
tapping an important e-mail.
For the most part, assiduous commenting on a friend’s Facebook updates and
periodically e-mailing promises to “catch up by phone soon” substitute for actual
conversation. With friends who merit face time, arrangements are carried out via
electronic transmission. “We do everything by text and e-mail,” said Laurie David, a
Hollywood producer and author. “It would be strange at this point to try figuring all that
out by phone.”
Of course, immediate family members still phone occasionally. “It’s useful for catching
up on parenting issues with your ex-husband,” said Ms. David, who used to be married
to Larry David, the star of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” “Sometimes when you don’t want to
type it all, it’s just easier to talk.”
But even sons, husbands and daughters don’t always want to chat. In our text-heavy
world, mothers report yearning for the sound of their teenage and adult children’s
voices. “I’m sort of missing the phone,” said Lisa Birnbach, author of “True Prep” and
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19/03/11 22.56Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You - NYTimes.com
Side 2 af 3http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/fashion/20Cultural.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=homepage&src=me
A version of this article appeared in print on March 20, 2011, on pageST1 of the New York edition.
mother of three teenagers. “It’s warmer and more honest.”
That said, her landline “has become a kind of vestigial part of my house like the intercom
buttons once used in my prewar building to contact the ‘servants quarters.’ ” When the
phone rings, 9 times out of 10, it’s her mother.
There are holdouts. Radhika Jones, an assistant managing editor at Time magazine, still
has a core group of friends she talks to by phone. “I’ve always been a big phone hound,”
she said. “My parents can tell you about the days before call waiting.” Yet even she has
slipped into new habits: Voice mails from her husband may not get listened to until end
of day. Phone messages are returned by e-mail. “At least you’re responding!”
But heaven forbid you actually have to listen — especially to voice mail. The standard
“let the audience know this person is a loser” scene in movies where the forlorn heroine
returns from a night of cat-sitting to an answering machine that bleats “you have no
messages” would cause confusion with contemporary viewers. Who doesn’t heave a huge
sigh of relief to find there’s no voice mail? Is it worth punching in a protracted series of
codes and passwords to listen to some three-hour-old voice say, “call me” when you
could glance at caller ID and return the call — or better yet, e-mail back instead?
Many people don’t even know how their voice mail works. “I’ve lost that skill,” Ms.
Birnbach said.
“I have no idea how to check it,” Ms. David admitted. “I can stay in a hotel for three days
with that little red light blinking and never listen. I figure, if someone needs to reach me,
they’ll e-mail.”
“I don’t check these messages often,” intoned a discouraging recorded voice, urging
callers to try e-mail. And this is the voice-mail recording of Claude S. Fischer, author of a
book on the history of the telephone and more recently, “Still Connected: Family and
Friends in America Since 1970.”
“When the telephone first appeared, there were all kinds of etiquette issues over whom
to call and who should answer and how,” Dr. Fischer, a sociology professor at the
University of California, Berkeley, told me when finally reached by phone. Among the
upper classes, for example, it was thought that the butler should answer calls. For a long
time, inviting a person to dinner by telephone was beyond the pale; later, the rules
softened and it was O.K. to call to ask someone to lunch.
Telephones were first sold exclusively for business purposes and only later as a kind of
practical device for the home. Husbands could phone wives when traveling on business,
and wives could order their groceries delivered. Almost immediately, however, people
began using the telephone for social interactions. “The phone companies tried to stop
that for about 30 years because it was considered improper usage,” Dr. Fischer said.
We may be returning to the phone’s original intentions — and impact. “I can tell you
exactly the last time someone picked up the phone when I called,” Mary Roach said. “It
was two months ago and I said: ‘Whoa! You answered your phone!’ It was a P.R. person.
She said, ‘Yeah, I like to answer the phone.’ ” Both were startled to be voice-to-voice
with another unknown, unseen human being.
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