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What's interesting is how much eventually migrated to text. The synchronous nature of phone calls is a big inconvenience. Especially with cell phones and unlimi

What's interesting is how much eventually migrated to text. The synchronous nature of phone calls is a big inconvenience. Especially with cell phones and unlimited plans, they became an incredibly low-friction way to interrupt someone's day in a way that a pre-telephone era would consider rude.

ghaff 5y ago
>interrupt someone's day in a way that a pre-telephone era would consider rude Telephones have been around for a very long time. Do you mean pre-cell phone era? If so, I mostly disagree. Especially before email and then all manner of messaging services became popular it was incredibly normal to call people out of the blue both for both personal and business reasons. When I was a product manager, field people would often call me with questions rather than email. My personal observation is that it's really within the last ten years (and maybe less) when people outside your immediate circle really stopped calling unless they connected asynchronously/scheduled first--and increasingly did away with phone calls entirely in many cases.
- Melatonic 5y ago
  I am definitely in that in between generation where I see both - people a bit older than me still often call and the friends a bit younger pretty much always text. I see benefits to both but am usually lazy and do the latter
- galago 5y ago
  There was etiquette though. I was taught as a child that it was rude to call people at meal times, or late at night. Because answering machines were rare, people would usually answer a ringing phone in case it was an emergency. I think even young people today know this if they've seen a lot of movies/tv set in the 20th century. Its the stereotypical scene of a phone ringing in someone's bedroom and they turn on the light an answer even though its nighttime.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    That's true enough. But, at home, that meant that anytime between 7 and 10 the phone would ring and you'd "have to" pick it up. Same thing if you sitting in your office, whatever you were doing. Pre-CallerID especially, a lot of people were conditioned to a phone call being something important that took a long time to break. Of course, calling was relatively expensive so while you could have wrong numbers you mostly didn't have junk callers.

ghaff 5y ago

>interrupt someone's day in a way that a pre-telephone era would consider rude Telephones have been around for a very long time. Do you mean pre-cell phone era? If so, I mostly disagree. Especially before email and then all manner of messaging services became popular it was incredibly normal to call people out of the blue both for both personal and business reasons. When I was a product manager, field people would often call me with questions rather than email. My personal observation is that it's really within the last ten years (and maybe less) when people outside your immediate circle really stopped calling unless they connected asynchronously/scheduled first--and increasingly did away with phone calls entirely in many cases.

Melatonic 5y ago
I am definitely in that in between generation where I see both - people a bit older than me still often call and the friends a bit younger pretty much always text. I see benefits to both but am usually lazy and do the latter
galago 5y ago
There was etiquette though. I was taught as a child that it was rude to call people at meal times, or late at night. Because answering machines were rare, people would usually answer a ringing phone in case it was an emergency. I think even young people today know this if they've seen a lot of movies/tv set in the 20th century. Its the stereotypical scene of a phone ringing in someone's bedroom and they turn on the light an answer even though its nighttime.
- ghaff 5y ago
  That's true enough. But, at home, that meant that anytime between 7 and 10 the phone would ring and you'd "have to" pick it up. Same thing if you sitting in your office, whatever you were doing. Pre-CallerID especially, a lot of people were conditioned to a phone call being something important that took a long time to break. Of course, calling was relatively expensive so while you could have wrong numbers you mostly didn't have junk callers.