A couple of weeks ago, my husband travelled to Germany to attend a trade show for a week.  I stayed in Vancouver with the boys and we found coordinating times for him to chat with us was difficult due to the big time change and our busy schedules.

Whenever one of us travels, we use FaceTime to video chat with the boys, and this time, we also received a couple of phone calls while he was away. Good old telephone conversations, no video, no text, no emojis involved.

Watching my son have a phone conversation with his Dad, awkwardly looking at the cellphone’s screen to see if he could watch him via video and just not being able to keep up a fluid conversation, made me wonder if his generation is on the way to completely lose the art of telephone conversation.

Losing the Art of Telephone Conversation

I am not sure about your kids, but my kids don’t talk on the phone with people very often. We mostly Skype or FaceTime family and friends, and if we are on the phone with grandma, they would jump in to say a quick “Hi”, have some small conversation and go back to their day. But I don’t think my children have ever had a full proper long conversation on the phone with ANYONE, without having video involved.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate technology and the fact that my boys can video chat with family and friends from all over the world and connect that way. I love when they video chat with their cousins and show them their latest LEGO creation and it almost feels like they are in the same room.

However, watching the lack of conversational skills once they were talking on the phone, without the help of video, text, or emojis, was sad. At their age, I remember having long conversations on the phone with friends and family, asking lots of questions, keeping conversations going.

I think ultimately, we are all losing those skills ourselves as well, we don’t even have a landline, as we use our cellphones only. Also, looking back at my phone history, I communicate with my family and friends via e-mail, WhatsUp, text, Facebook Messenger and FaceTime more than via telephone. It is actually rare for us to chat on the phone. I mostly use my phone for appointments and rare work calls. Nowadays you don’t even need the phone to place a pizza delivery! We can do it all with apps.

How do you feel about this? Do you think your children are losing the art of telephone conversation too? Or do they still talk on the phone with others? Share your thoughts!