Who’s Actually Working?
In an interesting semi annual survey, the CTIA has released their most recent telephone usage statistics. Did you know that 740 billion text messages (yes, with a “b”) were sent in the last six months alone? And that’s only counting US subscribers. The number works out to 11.7 text messages per day, per citizen in the US.
Someone else is certainly using up my quota. I barely send one text per month. I’m holding this thing called a “telephone” and want to tell someone something…so I call them. I guess I’m just weird.
There are also far more cell phones available, with “about 276,610,580 wireless subscribers in the U.S., up about 14 million from last year, and more than double the number in 2002.” And even as this is happening, the number of landlines (hardwired home telephones) keeps dropping. But even as we buy more phones (and give way more money to those ever-growing wireless carriers) we’re talking less…or at least we’re making shorter calls. The “average length of a voice call was just 2.03 minutes” in this last survey, which is shorter than at any point during the 21-year history of record keeping.
Are we all just spending more time on the Internet? Are we staying in touch via Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking services, and bypassing voice communications? We’re all typing a whole lot more, that’s for sure. The same statistics suggest that, by volume, the US texting population is writing “the equivalent of about 656,000 [100,000 word] books.” That’s a lot of output. And it doesn’t even count the amount of text generated online using email, social networking, and other means.
We live in a very interesting age. We’re better connected with one another than ever before, but apparently we spend a lot less time talking. Maybe it’s time to get out from behind all those keyboards and get some “face time” with friends and family. The holidays are coming up, after all.
October 31st, 2009 at 5:36 pm
“Keeping in touch” via e-mail and texting is probably sufficient to satisfy our psychological need for contact. Somehow “I e-mailed you” or “I’ve received an e-mail from you” is enough to trigger the “I’ve had contact” section of our minds–our mind equates it with being in the presence of someone, it seems–and that little checkbox is done in our minds, and we move on to other things. There may not be an innate need for physical proximity.
I believe that this will turn around eventually and see people abandoning tech for the “novelty” of human contact. But for some it’s just going to be their way of existence. Perhaps the sci-fi writers weren’t too far off when they predicted people interacting online 24×7 and having satisfying lives there? At that point what more do you need than an Internet connection and food? Will we eventually see entire living arrangements around this, 8×10 pods with a broadband connection?
A few years ago I began dropping off various e-mail lists and don’t do nearly as many e-mails as I used to. I’ve grown very weary of it all. The low volume is nice.