How we say hello

Perhaps it’s just me, but just the other day I observed how much the text message and instant messaging has taken over the telephone call as the favoured means of communication. Generally, I people watch whenever I’m on the bus, by day or by night, and, more often than not, I notice people furiously tapping away at the keypads on their phones much more than they’re talking into a plastic brick next to their ear.

Perhaps it’s because people like to keep things more personal and there’s less chance of their business being exploited when someone can’t earwig a conversation; perhaps people are more conscious that a phone call could disturb someone at a time less convenient for them, whereas a text message can be answered at any time; or maybe it's because a text message is quicker and they don't want to be stuck on a long conversation.

It could also be down to the growing concerns of the use of mobile phones. While nobody has been able to link health concerns to mobile phone usage completely, a recent study carried out by Dr Tony Jewell advised people to use a hands-free kit where possible and to keep conversations brief. The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) said two bilingual leaflets are available online that offer advice on mobile phone use and have been devised with the combined efforts of health professionals and children. With all of these growing health concerns, it makes me wonder whether some people afraid to use their phone for anything apart from texting?

Whatever the case may be, it’s certainly food for thought.

Texting wasn’t even going to be part of today’s line-up of mobile phones and was used as more of a communication tool between authorities and agencies when mobiles were in their infancy. Nowadays, however, it seems almost impossible to imagine a handset without some means of texting and would probably result in the handset being marched back to the shop, receipt in hand, demanding money back. Even instant messaging has joined texting on mobile phones and enables people to access GChat, MSN, Blackberry Messanger and more when on the move, at the touch of a button.

Generally, I’ve noticed that those who tend to actually make phone calls are older people who have probably been brought up with only the home telephone, and not mobile phones, and are still unsure of how this ‘texting malarchy’ actually works. I'm not necessarily suggesting all old people make phone calls and never text, but, in my experience, they seem to be in the minority.

I must confess I’m a texting man. When I was much younger I used to talk to a school friend on the telephone for two hours at a time on a regular basis, even though I would have seen him at school the same day and would have been talking to him there as well. Now, if I tried to do that, I’d complain my ear was hurting too much and I’d be itching to play a game, watch a DVD or do some writing.

The last time I used the phone extensively was nearly two years ago, when I was first dating my girlfriend and we were in the ‘getting to know you’ stage where we would stay up late, talk about our likes and dislikes, throw a flirt in here or there and generally have some fun. Nowadays, I’m lucky if a phone conversation lasts more than a minute and, if it does, it’s usually if I’m on hold with a company or I’m taking a marketing survey! It’s not unusual to me though, as I always found I could articulate myself better with the written, rather than the spoken, word. Yet some would argue it takes a lot longer to type something you could simply say in a second.

In has been said that people are writing less these days, but that’s not entirely true. People may not be structuring articulate sentences filled with flair and pizzazz, but they are still writing, even if it is in a much more condensed and confined way.

Where do you stand? Are you a texter or a caller?