Lee Suckling: Let's start talking on the phone again

A study has shown most of us are introverted when it comes to reaching out to people via a phone call. Photo / iStock

Inspired by a recent Modern Etiquette query about the frustrations of waiting for email replies I've been thinking a lot about how little I use my phone as an actual phone.

I, like most New Zealanders, have a smartphone. It's actually a wildly unfashionable Blackberry. I use it all day long for email. I use the Facebook app, and I contact my international friends throughout the day via Whatsapp. I use it for weather updates, I use it for music, I use it for movie times.

On average, however, I receive only six phone calls a week, all of which usually last less than two minutes. If you check your call log right now, I suspect you'll find your history reveals much the same.

The proliferation of modern technologies has meant there's little need to pick up the phone anymore. Work-wise, everything is done via email. Theoretically this makes work more straightforward and traceable, but often ends up being more time consuming and passive aggressive than any other form of modern communication.

Why not just start using our phones as phones again? Well, according to a 2015 study by the University of Chicago, it's because most of us are introverted when it comes to reaching out and following people up at work, and we're more comfortable hiding behind a keyboard to do so.

However, that same study found that corporates favour those that speak to them directly over those who type out their requests, pitches, thoughts, and feelings. Even when the content is exactly the same, the spoken word seems to always rule - and help you go further in the rat race - than the written.

When we use the phone, we're able to communicate our mental state far more accurately than we can through the typing of text. The person we're talking to can understand our verbal cues. We can explain things immediately when they aren't understood the first time. And, of course, we don't have to worry about typos - grammar can be less than perfect when spoken and it's not a big deal.

We also avoid, as was explained by a Modern Etiquette reader, the anxiety that comes with waiting for emails. When you send out a dozen in an afternoon and get no replies by 5pm, you leave work with unfinished business on your shoulders. That's not good for anybody's mental health.

If you communicated those same messages over the phone, it's highly unlikely you'd need 12 phone calls. You'd probably need only a handful, and would usually hang up from each one feeling confident that your request or reply was acknowledged.

A key reason for this is because it's much harder to be unkind over the phone. It's terribly difficult to be passive aggressive, rude, or unaccepting when you're talking to somebody, because basic humanity prevents you from acting like an insolent child who hasn't had their afternoon sippy cup.

Furthermore, you can't ignore a question you don't want to answer like you can over email. This goes both ways: people can't ignore your questions either. Everything is on the spot, in the moment. It's raw and real with no filters. And as a real bonus, come 5pm, you work will be left where it should be left: at work.

Furthermore, when something is urgent, you can genuinely convey its urgency far better using your voice than using your keyboard. You can strategically appeal to people to do you favours, or prioritise you over somebody else.

The aforementioned University of Chicago study, for example, found this to be true for job candidates: potential employers believed job hunters who used the phone to call them were more competent, more thoughtful, and more intelligent than those who used email instead.

That's right. If you use the phone, people think you're smarter.

Email is always going to have its place in the office. I can't count how many times I've had to say "can you put this in an email?" before I've been able to action what they've asked me to do.

But email should always be that: a follow up with the technical details; the fine print; the nitty gritty of your request or reply.

Let us all start picking up the phone again. In case you haven't noticed, the modern line-up of smartphones has exceptionally clear call quality - something that was incredibly important to us all a decade ago.

Unlimited calling plans are also available from all the major telecoms in New Zealand now. We might as well use them. Could anything bad really come from actually talking to each other again?