Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

I grew up in the era when the telephone was the main communication tool. Long before cell phones, texting, emails, tablets, or Dick Tracy watches.

As a teenager, I spent hours on a clunky black phone that sat on the desk in my bedroom. As a young mother, I spent the same amount of time on the phone while I did dishes. That model hung on the wall; and I had a long cord from it to the  headset; so I could roam the kitchen unencumbered. Most of my friends did the same thing.

Since those days, telephones have gotten smaller and more sophisticated. You can do almost anything on them that you do on a full-fledged computer. But their original purpose seems to have disappeared, because hardly anyone uses a phone to call a friend or make dinner reservations or order a book from the library.

They text or use an app instead. They use Google® or some other browser where almost anything you want to check or confirm or change can be done. They check the weather, update their calendars, and schedule Zoom meetings.

Maybe it’s more efficient, but it seems less personal to me. The sound of another human’s voice just adds something to the conversation.