When my phone rings, it’s almost always my mom, or her mom, or my partner’s mom. It’s always somebody’s mom. For everyone else, the notification is a buzz, a ding, a quick vibration. For all of the not-moms in my life, we communication via text message, Facebook, Twitter, email, chat, or Skype. We connect regularly, but rarely through voice calls. When I do pick up the phone, I last about 30 minutes max. Then, my ear feels hot, my shoulders tense, and I refuse to ask “were you talking to me, or to Dad?”” one more time.
This is indicative of a wider trend. The telephone, as a medium of voice-talk, is in massive decline—at least amongst the texting public. A widely cited 2012 CDC study shows that over half of all American homes rely predominately on mobile devices, with almost 40% living in landline-free homes. And we all know, the cellphone is far better at just about everything than voice-to-voice communication. With smartphones, the talk function seems almost like an afterthought, available in case of emergency.
And this shift away from traditional telephones and their voice-call functions is, I argue, the result of an inherently flawed medium. I don’t prefer alternate forms of communication because I am inept at conversation; I prefer alternate forms because the telephone is inept at facilitating conversation. I’m not even referring here to fuzzy connections and dropped calls. Those are imperfections in the system. I’m talking about a deep social-psychological flaw with the telephone as a mediating device.
Ethnomethodologists and conversation analysts say that the best conversations have a continuous flow, with each speaker picking up just as hir partner leaves off, barely overlapping. This kind of conversation requires intense engagement, and highly accurate cue-reading on the parts of interaction partners. Interruptions and extended silences disrupt the conversational flow, and create a less satisfying interaction.
Off the bat, the telephone puts interactants at a disadvantage by taking away all but vocal cues. The listener cannot see the speaker’s face to tell if s/he is merely taking a breath, or waiting for a response. The speaker remains ignorant to the listener’s nods, not knowing if quiet indicates deep enthrallment, distraction, or outright boredom.
To be clear, I am not advocating a “reduced social cues model” or celebrating face-to-face as the gold standard. I don’t think technologically mediated interaction necessarily reduces social cues, or that social cue reduction is necessarily a problem. I do think, however, that the telephone reduces social cues in a problematic way.
The problem with the telephone goes beyond inhibiting the perfect conversation. Let’s be honest, a perfect conversational flow is rare. More often, we converse imperfectly, with lulls, interruptions, general choppiness. Most communication media, however, have tools which help us manage those imperfections.
Asynchronous communication, like email messages, texts, and Facebook wall posts, do away with many of the difficult conventions of real-time interaction. One need not reply right away, nor disrupt what s/he is doing. The message waits, ready for reply at the recipient’s earliest convenience.
Synchronous communication media, though requiring real-time responses, have mechanisms which help conversations along. Skype allows interactants to see each other’s faces, get the background and context, lets an eye roll to stand in for a snarky reply. When conversing in person, the environment becomes a wonderful tool in interaction maintenance. Don’t know what to say? Wonder out about the restaurant you just passed by, pet the dog in the room, coddle the child, discuss the interesting piece of architecture, or, if all else fails, people-watch for a few seconds until someone comes up with something to say. When engaging through relay-chat (IM), interactants relax their expectations for seamless flow. Each interactant is granted a delay with which to articulate hir thoughts. As s/he types them, the chat feature often informs hir partner that the response is still in development. “Jenny is typing…” is a way for me to show my partner that I am still engaged, and a way for hir to know that it is not yet hir turn. In short, it un-awkwards the silence.
The phone, I argue, is a weak link in our communication ecology, one which—in traditional form—will soon become a relic. Add video, or take away voice, and the device is far more conversationally conducive.
Follow Jenny on Twitter @Jenny_L_Davis
Comments 7
SAA — January 15, 2014
PolySocial Reality (PoSR) models and examines the outcome of synchronous and asynchronous multiple and multiplexed messaging between humans/humans, humans/machines, machines/machines. Http://www.posr.org
"Asynchronous Adaptations to Complex Social Interactions" is our latest publication, (IEEE Society and Technology (Winter 2013)) - which may be useful to you.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=6679308
"In this article we explore how multiplexed networked individuated communications are creating new contexts for human behavior within communities, particularly noting the shift from synchronous to asynchronous communication as an adaptation."
SAA — January 15, 2014
Synchronous communication (or as close to it as possible) for humans is critical. Those overlaps that you write about with the telephone are important. As we have written in our PoSR research: if there is not enough overlap within messages, there can be a lack of understanding, which generates the need for more messages (at best) and at worst, lack of cooperation which can have really bad consequences. (Not sure if you saw my talk at TtW2012, but this is when I show the slide of a cargo ship crashing through a bridge.)
The nuances in voice timbre, pauses and the ability to readily clarify misunderstandings makes the telephone extremely useful. Text does not convey emotion as easily.
In the paper I list above (Applin and Fischer 2013), we observe and note the shift towards asynchronous communication becoming more of a favored adaptation. We posit that this has to do with the ways that people are choosing to manage personal time.
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ArtSmart Consult — January 28, 2014
Every medium has its situations where it's best used. The phone is still superior for communication when your hands and eyes are occupied, like when washing dishes or driving a car. And it's a little more real time than texting. I don't know about you, but I can talk faster than I can text.
Holli — February 13, 2014
The suggestion that forms of asynchronous communication are superior to telephone communication because they lower the expectation of continuous flow is a bit difficult to swallow. First of all, given everything we know thus far about human communication and the importance of inflection, tone of voice, and body language, it doesn't seem feasible that removing ALL of these is good idea. No, you cannot see body language over the phone, but you do have voice cues, which are very important and arguably superior to having no access to cues at all as is the case with texting et al. This is why I am perplexed by your closing statement that suggests conversation is better conducted without voice, if it cannot have visual attached to it.
Secondly, up to now, people have had an understanding of the limitations of the telephone as a communication device. It is not as if it is seen as equivalent to face-to-face interaction. Just as you argue the expectations tied to texting and tweeting, I would argue that people know what they are getting into when they use the phone for talking. The advantages of real time conversation and voice cues go a long way in mitigating a lack of visual ones. The telephone is also very efficient. An issue can be resolved in 5 minutes, versus a series of one-liners texted over a period of time.
Thirdly, I would question the true convenience of texting when it comes to allowing people to respond when they want to. Rather than creating a leisurely environment in which to craft a response and return a thoughtful response, I see texting as pressuring people to respond immediately (texting and driving, for example). The advent of texting, in my observation, has created an expectation for instant gratification-- people get angry when they do not get a response right away, responders are compelled to interrupt their jobs, their driving, their face-to-face conversations, etc. to respond to inane text messages. Furthermore, it is difficult to escape the pressure-- the smart phone is there everywhere, at all times.
Young people have told me they feel this pressure and it really makes me wonder to what degree conforming to these expectations is related to the high levels of stress young people feel these days (as indicated by a recent study out of Loyola).
I think there are some generational differences at work in your perception versus mine. As has already been pointed out, human communication is never flawless and it does not follow textbook standards, but different forms of communication are useful for different reasons. It seems unwise to phase out more contextually grounded forms of communication in favor of acontextual, asynchronous ones.
Nathan Ferguson — July 21, 2014
I think this critique is spot on. There's nothing like a good phone conversation in large part because it is so exceedingly rare!
While, as others mentioned, there is some pressure to respond promptly to texts/IM, I find that, as in face-to-face interaction, I enjoy the slight pressure. It allows for suspense to be strung out over long periods, in a ways that just wouldn't work over the phone.
One deficiency unique to cell phones that hasn't been mentioned but which I'd argue is a key contributor to unsatisfying calls is the loss of voice feedback for one's own voice. Functioning like an audio monitor for a musician, phones once provided direct passive audio feedback. This monitor effect made it easier to tell, if, for example, you were talking too loudly or not loud enough, as ambient noise would be fed back to you. Or, if your breathing was audible.
Today cell phones, even smartphones, omit this feature entirely, a trade off made presumably to conserve battery life (and/or inflate the phone's advertised talk time). The unfortunate side effect of this change is that of talking into a dead object, which induces us to regularly and disruptively check whether the line is dead: "Hello!? Are you still there?"
Add to that the occasional call drop, latency, signal degradation, tinny headset speaker and mic, and the atrophying of our phone call "muscles" (not to mention it's usually our parents, which brings its own pressures) and it's a wonder we ever call each other. Which, as one who finds face-to-face meetings (whether in-person or via Skype) a bit overstimulating, is kind of a bummer. Text/IM are great, but I still hold out hope (or indulge nostalgia) for synchronous voices.