Phone culture changes

When was the last time you answered your phone? An essay in The Atlantic considers how we’re gradually moving away from what it calls “telephone culture.”

“No one picks up the phone anymore. Even many businesses do everything they can to avoid picking up the phone. Of the 50 or so calls I received in the last month, I might have picked up four or five times. The reflex of answering ... is gone,” the magazine notes.

The reasons? Well, too many calls these days are unsolicited sales or marketing calls, most of them robocalls. Then, there are so many more ways to communicate today. “Text messaging and its associated multimedia variations are rich and wonderful: words mixed with emoji, Bitmoji, reaction gifs, regular old photos, video, links. Texting is fun.”

Do you still pick up? Email rrollins@coxohio. com.