Communication and timing

[redbird]

It's not that the job, or even the commute, is terribly draining. It's that there are only so many hours in the day, and I'm not online for many of them during the week, anymore.

That means far fewer random AIM chats with D (WINOLJ), and far less email with, well, almost everyone. I may be using the telephone more; I don't know yet.

Comments

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

i keep being told that i should use the phone for my social life, and that my friendships are suffering because ive lost the habit of long phone coverstaions. and i used to do them, but before i went online..

*wonders if phone chatting needs to be revived as a habit*
i find it feels strange now to phone someone i dont know that well for a chat, though. *hmm*

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think you're quite right to hesitate about that. The phone is intrusive in exactly the way email isn't, it interrupts, it disturbs everyone in the room, or in some cases the apartment, it's insistent and demands attention *now*. Also some people don't enjoy talking on it. I can certainly imagine circumstances where I'd be cursing someone for ringing me up, whereas I'd have found email from them quite welcome -- and in the case of "someone I don't know that well" that would be pretty much always. Someone I didn't know that well who phoned me just for a "chat" I'd go to great lengths to make sure I didn't get to know any better!

[redbird]

The phone is intrusive in exactly the way email isn't.

Quite. Real-time interaction does have some advantages, though (and the time this job leaves free, evenings and weekends, is time that many other people have to themselves, though of course they may have other plans than talking to me). One advantage of having an answering machine is that it makes it easier not to asnwer the phone, because I know it won't ring more than four times, and that I won't wonder if that was something important, someone I like calling about something non-urgent, or junk (e.g., wrong numbers and requests for me to donate to worthy causes).

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

do you think we are experiencing a general shift of culture away from the phone towards email? i am actually finding that apart from very close people, i only use the phone for business/making arrangements, when people are not replying to my email and it is urgent.

that is very useful actually, thank you.
i may now stop feeling guilty!

i do find it extremely annoying when i am in a group of people, one of whom receives a phonecall and proceeds to have a long chat without leaving the room, while everybody waits. i cant believe some people think that is good manners!

[redbird]

But do the people who say your friendships are suffering from lack of long phone conversations call you? Or do they assume that your friendship with some third party must be at risk, because it's not how they do things?

[sraun]

What does WINOLJ stand for?

[(Anonymous)]

Who Is Not On LiveJournal.

As I am not.

D.