Texting vs. Calling

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. I can remember as a teenager looking at the family telephone, just staring at it, waiting for it to ring.

And I can also remember a few years ago when a couple of friends of mine started doing this thing called texting.

And I thought that was just the dumbest thing in the world. I couldn’t imagine who would want to send a text to anybody.

Why don’t you just pick up the phone and call?

But something has happened in the meantime.

And now, although, you know, I love talking to callers on the show and I talk on the phone for work. Otherwise, I’m kind of notorious for being allergic to talking on the phone.

And I’m texting like crazy.

I feel like texting is a great way to stay in touch with friends.

I feel actually closer to them, I think, than when I talk to them on the phone because we just sort of pass notes all day.

Is there any kind of quality about the voice conversation that bothers you now?

Does that feel like too much of an imposition?

You know what it feels like to me is a handwritten thank you note.

Oh, that old fashioned.

It does.

It’s just, I mean, I have one friend who’s not on email at all, not on texting.

And it’s like this little special treat when we talk on the phone because it’s so unusual.

But otherwise, my communication is written, and that’s quite different from how it used to be.

I think you’re part of a larger trend, Martha.

Oh, good.

If you go to, say, Twitter, and you search for the words voicemail light or voicemail symbol or VM light or VM symbol, you will find an incredible number of people who do not want to be left to voicemail.

And I think this is an offshoot of what you’re talking about.

Why are you calling me and leaving me a message when you could just send me a text or an email?

Right, right.

I mean, if it’s really good news or really bad news, yeah, I’ll take a phone call.

But otherwise, in my leisure time, I just feel like I can be doing other stuff with my tongue.

Yeah.

And there are a lot of people who say things like they just hate the voicemail light or the voicemail symbol.

They’re like the only reason they check them is to get rid of the symbol because it bothers them.

Turn it off.

Turn it off.

Yeah.

I’m looking at a bunch of things here that I found on a search.

Laura Kuno in Florida tweeted, the best present the universe gave me this morning was coming into work with no red voicemail light lit up on my phone.

Rock on, world.

Maybe her phone’s broken.

And there’s a guy named Chris Salter in the UK who put, conveniently placed my teacup to hide my voicemail light.

But a lot of them, here’s my favorite one.

Andrea Lavinthal in New York City.

Sorry, red voicemail light on my office phone, but I don’t negotiate with terrorists.

But that’s how bad it is.

Well, are you the same way?

It does bother me.

I hate seeing that red light on my work phone.

Because it’s a task.

Well, also because it’s like 15 or 20 button presses and the voicemail is like, message received, Tuesday, October 2nd.

Exactly.

2013.

At 4.

22 p.m.

It’s like, oh, voicemail lady, stop it.

You’re killing me.

This is why Google Voice was such an innovation.

The fact that it arrives as a voice, as an MP3 in your inbox.

You’re like, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

With some approximate transcripts, which I’ll take any day over actually having to hear the whole message.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you think I’m being high maintenance?

I mean, you can glance at a text and get the gist of it.

Yeah.

You can see how many exclamation marks there are.

I mean, if that’s the way you’re oriented towards text, and you and I are, I can scan a page of text much faster and get the gist of it than listening to a whole message.

Plus, people are repetitive when they speak in a way that they’re not when they write.

Right.

That said, we listen to everything that we get from you, our listeners.

We read all of the emails.

Probably five or six people read every email that comes in here.

And several people listen to all the voicemails.

And I wish we could answer every single one of them.

But we wouldn’t do the show.

That’s the modern age, isn’t it?

The burden of voicemail.

What are your voice habits now?

What do you use the phone for?

Does it even need a speaker?

I use it for taking pictures.

The phone is so far from a phone.

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