Do people just not ring each other any more, is this normal?

I'm 70, and none of this is news to me. But I think now, it is just more efficient to make a voice call and sort out the details.

I actually don’t think I have ever had a phone conversation with any of my friends or colleagues . I’m 48. Messages and real life meetings only.

Yes OP I think is probably quite young?

Doesnt remember life years ago. Most families in my parents time and life didnt have a phone, you say 60s and 70s, we didnt have a phone until the late 70s. Years ago they would have to be at a certain phone box at a certain time to get a call, thats how it worked.

Completely agree. Messaging/WhatsApp is bloody awful. Really inefficient & open to misinterpretation in so many ways & just horrible. No wonder there is such an epidemic of anxiety and loneliness.

We are all in our forties and fifties so texting wasn't even a thing for most of our lives

What? 😂

I had my first mobile 27 years ago and texting was HUGE, even then.

Texting has absolutely been a thing for 'most' of all of your friends' lives!

Totally bizarre to write about something like texting as if it was invented ten years ago.

Have to say OP it's a little strange that you are are nostalgic for one method of technological communication, that was in mass use for possibly only half a century of human history, if that. Growing up in the 60s and 70s the telephone in our house was not used for long chats with friends and family. Partly because it was expensive, partly because we had a party line, partly because not everyone had a phone, but also because the darn thing lived in an unheated hallway where it was attached with a cable. When I went to university in the early 80s my only phone calls were from a phone box and were mainly to ask my Mum to send money.

Also nervousness about making phone calls is not a new phenomenon. When I started work in the late 80s I was terrified to use the phone in a business setting, particularly to people I didn't know. But I got over it.

I think you are seeing all this through a very narrow lens. There are many problems and risks associated with modern digital communications, but that should not detract from the incredible power of digital messaging that makes it so easy to arrange a meet up, send a funny photo, co-ordinate a weekend plan, check in with a friend hundred of miles away who is struggling with life but may be too exhausted to talk on the phone. And many other uses

I talk to my daughter, my son and my husband (occasionally) but I never have a phone call with anyone else. I don’t like nattering.

Only ever ring my parents.

I can’t stand speaking on the phone - please never call me 🤣

No one talking to each other anymore ?
what’s the world coming to ?
it seems most of you prefer computer messaging . well you won’t need to be bothered soon - you can be replaced by your personal Ai bot in a year or 2.- then you won’t need to personally interact with any one - not even your children …job done.

The only persons who ring me on our land line are my Aunts . My mum is no longer with us and she always phoned me landline or mobile. My dsis who lives abroad will use WhatsApp but we also speak to each other by phone. Texts are OK for quick messages but nothing beats a good chat by phone. Things can get misconstrued by text. There is room for both. I remember in the late seventies dating someone who lived a distance away and we could spend hours on the phone much to my parent consternation especially if my dad was s trying to ring my mum as he sometime worked away.

But DH never does anything unless there is a decent profit involved.

At work, especially in business, answering your phone is the main route to getting work. As in. I need an x? Can you help? DH will never say he can't: he will always ask for details, dimensions, and say, I will ask around and get back to you. He finds the answer in minutes and the time it takes him to respond is the time he wants to consider the price he thinks is right.

Yes or worse they leave voice notes which is awful

This. I see friends all the time. We make out plans on WhatsApp so we can read and reply at our convenience and the. We do our talking in person.

Erm, dont you know thats sort of the history of communication anyway!!!

Letters, then telegrams, then phones. Its all been done before!!!

The smartphone is not the only phone

I ring my sister and my mum. Sometimes my husband if we’re apart, I don’t talk to other people on the phone. Hate it in fact.

Me too plus you can answer texts any time. There's nothing worse than somebody phoning for a good chat when you're busy then they get offended if you ask them to call back later.

I see my friends all the time! Went for lunch with 4 of them yesterday. Went out for a drink with another on Friday night. In between that I don’t speak to them on the phone, we WhatsApp. It’s absolutely not because I’m unsociable, I just prefer to talk to them face to face 🤷🏻‍♀️

Messages sent to people is not a new shiny default, its been around since people could write. Wax tablets being sent from Rome to the British barbarians, runes on stones, the Egyptian things that I cant spell

Speaking on a phone is the anomaly.

I love talking on the phone, and that’s how I communicate with my close friends.

I have a feeling that If texting had been around forever and actual voice conversations had only become possible with the advent of the smartphone, everyone would be enthralled by the possibility of actually talking to other people.

I do too. I’m 60 and always hated talking on phone. WhatsApp is a game changing invention for many of us and it’s not exactly new is it?

This is mumsnet where everyone locks themselves into their houses and hide when the doorbell rings. Of course nobody actually talks on the phone.

I had to google onanism, as have never come across it before, but…snort. And yes.

Me! I call people! We may text to schedule the call at a convenient time but I bloody love a chat on the phone with my mates. They seems to enjoy them too. Best friend and I speak weekly, others monthly or so. And I call my dad every day.

Love a chat on the phone for sorting one’s soul.

You claimed they dont speak to anyone becuase of anxiety

Im saying I know the type of men, geeky anti social types, you're portraying and Im saying they do speak to people, they have no anxiety becuase they have no self awareness and just bleat on forever. It wasnt the example to use of why people dont speak on phones.