Conversation, interrupted… by phone
Mobile phones are amazing. The ability to instantaneously speak with nearly anyone in the world is what we only dreamed of a mere few decades ago. I want to talk to my friend down the road? No problem. I want to catch up with my sister living in Australia? Oh yeah, there are no issues doing that either. Now we live that reality, for better and for worse. They were once cumbersome bricks that travelled in cars, making only telephone calls. Now we can use them to call, text, email, navigate, play games, create art and read. And with new devices, comes a new range of etiquette expectations.
Mobile phones have changed the way we communicate, and will continue to evolve our behaviours as their uses become more varied - along with the arrival of mobile internet on smart phones, within a year we can expect our phones to replace those leather-bound friends we protect in our back pockets. Yes, the days of the humble wallet are numbered, and with tech such as Google Wallet and INES, those days are counting down fast. The phone will become not just the communication centre of our lives, but also our lifestyle hub.
I find my mobile is a great communication tool. Of course, the origins of the mobile phone relate to voice calls. When I receive a phone call from someone, it's usually a pleasant and nice surprise. It can sometimes bring great news, an interesting story, or eventuate in a catch up with friends later this evening. Sometimes, it's the simple inquiry of "What are you doing?" Other times, it can be downright irritating - it might be at an inconvenient time, or I might simply not wish to speak to anyone.
And as much as I appreciate it when someone calls, I really appreciate it when I am speaking with someone directly in person.
What irks me is that this isn't always reciprocated.
You see, communication involvement ranges on a spectrum from being highly involved to minimally involved. An example of minimally involved communication might be a tweet or a wall post sent from a phone. Some asynchronous communication. When I tweet someone, there is an understanding that when I send a tweet to a friend, I might be doing something else at that time. In fact, for those who know me, I am most probably doing something else at that time.
Same as when I SMS - I know that I don't expect an SMS back immediately. Even though I know most people will read the message and then leave it until their phone beeps at them three times, they don't respond in a hurry. Why not? Because they know it's OK not to write back immediately. It's seen as too eager. It's the unwritten social code of SMS.
That's cool - my friends don't mind. They know that I have the same expectations as themselves. I don't expect them to answer my SMS immediately. Golden rule, hey? Do unto others as you would expect them to do unto you. For tweeting, wall posting and SMSing, we understand that the amount of effort exerted by the sender is relatively small. Therefore, it's a low form of communicative engagement.
Contrast that with someone who meets you in person. Say you set a time, date and location, and you agree to meet one another for the purposes of doing whatever. You deliberately plan ahead, rather than spontaneously shotgun a message through the ether. You can chat, you can laugh, share coffee, stare into each others' gaze - the most important thing is that you commit to see one another in person. In person. Even if you bump into someone at the supermarket, you are still staring at someone face to face. The only technology involved is your evolved larynx that reproduces speech. There is no higher form of engaging with another human. That is of course until the day they manage to fuse brains together into one tubular entity for the sake of 'communication', but you probably won't be as free to share a coffee when they are doing that one.
So when you are sharing those chats, laughs and gazes with your friend, your phone rings. Someone wants a spontaneous engagement with you, but at a lower level of engagement. However, you have already engaged with someone at a higher level - you are doing the chatting/laughing/gazing thing with them.
My question is why would someone prioritise a phone call over a face-to-face engagement? To me, the person calling can wait. Sure, what they might have to say is important… but everything is important these days. The girl who sweeps the floor at the coffee shop is doing something important. The gentleman selling the Big Issue is doing something important too.
To me, the most important thing in my mind at that moment is the person right in front of me. Therefore, I choose to leave my phone to ring out. On iPhone, you press either of the volume buttons when it rings, and it shuts off both the buzz and the sound. Do I feel guilty? No, not really. I would expect people to do the same to me. I would expect them to understand that I am already engaging with someone. If I were to say, "excuse me, I'll be taking this call," it's similar to putting someone on hold on the phone and picking up the other line. You are multitasking engagers - that would seem rude, wouldn't it?
And typically, the type of important event I am told about over phone could have easily been answered in an email or SMS. The importance of that event typically borders on something like, "We cannot book a study room on Thursday," or "Where are we going for dinner tonight?" And even if something life changing was hanging on that phone call, would the different between me knowing in a half hour as opposed to immediately change the outcome? If we look at the large perspective of life, probably not.
I blame the regime our society us trained us with - we inherently fear missing out on something important. This is particularly evident in Singapore, where kiasu, a Hokkien word that translates to 'fear of losing,' is thrown around the management university both in word and thought more than I'd like. We are so afraid on not coming in first, that we sacrifice the simple pleasures in life, like an uninterrupted conversation with someone.
The phone is the second highest form of communicative engagement behind face-to-face communication. However, society encourages us to prioritise the phone over a real world meeting.
I am not undermining the importance of communication with voice - I am a huge advocate for rich media communication experiences. What I do believe however is that we can more efficiently express ourselves given the technologies we have today. The truth is our mobile phone is no longer a brick that lives in the car, locked to a life making only voice calls. We can SMS, tweet and email our friends in less time than it takes to have a phone conversation. You have myriads of ways to communicate with people. Use them, and indulge in the pleasures of uninterrupted face to face conversation.
