General News
13 September, 2024
It's smart but for many it no longer functions as a phone
The smartphone is ubiquitous and it's killing off the phone call.
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Nostalgia is easy from this vantage point in life. Rose-tinted lenses on the past are like creaky knees and grey hair. They come with age.
In the 21st century, we might not have the flying cars we dreamed about as kids but there are plenty of other technological marvels which would have been unthinkable a few decades ago.
Take the highly addictive smartphone, the object of so much scorn yet the one thing we'd be hard-pressed to live without. We cling to it but how often do we use its "phone" function? We make calls and receive them if we know the number. But if we don't, we've learned not to answer, thanks to those incessant scam calls. A genuine caller will leave a voicemail.
We use it for its host of different functions. Booking flights and hotels. Checking on the traffic conditions before setting out. Seeing if those sirens we heard are a fire, a flood or a collision on the highway. Assessing via the weather app whether the weekend's planned activities will be washed out - or blown away.
We take countless photos and videos on it, then use it to share them on social media.
We read the news on it. We invite The Echidna into our lives on it first thing in the morning. We catch up on emails. Send instant messages.
Many of us use it to pay for purchases.
But we make fewer phone calls than ever. And the younger you are, the less likely to use your device for what it was originally intended.
A British survey last year found 26 per cent of members of Gen Z people (those born 1997 and 2012) actively avoid speaking on the phone. An earlier survey revealed 75 per cent of Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) ignored calls because they were too time consuming. Both generations prefer to communicate by text or message apps like Messenger and WhatsApp.
Growing up in Canberra in the 1960s, a phone call was a special occasion, a high point in the crushing monotony of life in the bush capital. We gathered around to talk - "Be quick! It's an STD call!" - to Uncle Mike phoning from Sydney. Now if the phone attached the landline rings, we're startled. There's even a condition known as phone anxiety.
And the smartphone? Any unidentified call on that is viewed with suspicion. So here we are, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, and the smartphone is killing off the phone call. We're connected and disconnected at the same time.
There's much to love about the smartphone. Curious about the helicopter circling off in the distance? Identify it on Flightradar24. Living room needs vacuuming? Activate the robot while you're on a bushwalk. Need to know whether conditions will be favourable for drone photography in two days' time? Open UAV Forecast.
But it's past time we changed its name. Smart it is. But phone? Not so much anymore.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you prefer to communicate via phone calls? Or are text messages and emails your preference? Do phone calls make you anxious? Could you live without your smartphone? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au