The "talk to someone" function on my cell gets used approximately once a week. Maybe twice if I get locked out of somewhere (which admittedly happened yesterday). Still, people look at me like I'm crazy when I talk about swearing off for good.

Recently my friends and family have pointed out that I don't really talk on the phone. "Dialing can work both ways, you know," they say. It's true. I don't call anyone. I rarely even pick up when someone calls. I note who's calling and listen to their message later if they've left one. Why is this exactly?

It's a poor medium. There is an expectation of immediate communication without the benefit of immediate feedback. In personal communication, body language plays a huge role in carrying the message—completely lacking on the telephone. Instant messaging has similar problems, it's true, but with greater leniency afforded to response times to compensate. You can consider what's been written and gather your thoughts. We're only talking a few seconds (somewhat longer for text messaging) but it can make a huge difference.

When someone doesn't respond immediately to what you've said on the telephone, the natural tendency is to assume you haven't offered enough information or that they disagree. You prattle on trying to clarify. This behavior is precisely why the Cingular "Dropped Call" commercials are funny. Maybe one day everyone everywhere will grow an extra patience muscle... or maybe telephones are just bad that way. Too many of my conversations devolve into one person dominating the conversation (half of the time it's me) or two people talking over one another or long periods of silence... like a Zen face-off.

So what do I like? I like time-shifted mediums a lot. That's why I continue to check voicemail, even though I rarely call someone back. Once you drop the preconceived notion that cellphones are for instant voice communication, the idea of being able to send someone an "audio text message" of you talking sounds pretty useful. My not answering has turned some of my friends into sound artists, leaving fairly outstanding voicemails for me.

Email, text messaging, and instant messaging are all great. I rarely if ever let them go unanswered. But I'm no techno-elitist. Two summers ago, my girlfriend at the time was away for the summer at a mountain retreat. I absolutely hated talking to her on the phone (a combination of very poor sound quality and not being able to call her back and thus having to take her call each and every time wherever I was) so we wrote letters. I wrote at least one every week, without fail, sometimes accompanied by CDs or pictures of my cat doing ridiculous things. They averaged several pages long and the double digit range was not unheard of.

Of course, there's always face-to-face communication as well. I live in San Francisco and, if you're lucky enough to as well, you can talk to me face-to-face whenever. I'll even buy you a drink. If your lucky level falls between living-in-San-Francisco and owning-a-Mac, I'll video chat with you anytime. I normally use Adium (yay encryption!) but IM me and I'll switch to iChat AV and you can find out if I'm wearing clothes or not. For those of you who neither live in SF nor own a Mac, not being able to talk with me is the least of your problems.

I started this post wanting to talk about Twitter and personal blogs—how the public aspect of them allows people to share things about their life with people they wouldn't normally otherwise stay in touch with (for instance, a number of the readers of this very blog are college friends or other folk that I don't exactly talk with everyday). When I ask people why they don't Twitter or have a blog they look at me the exact same way as when I tell them I'm thinking about officially ditching the telephone. People should use the technology that works for them, by all means, but consider this very blog post a warning to anyone who wants to stay in touch with me: I stay in touch better with people who Twitter. It's just a fact, sorry. Go there now. Friend me. If you don't like it, leave. There's no 2-year contract with T-Mobile or anything.

I've probably never liked the telephone. I remember a certain titillation in talking with girls in high school, but I'm guessing that was substantially more about the "talking to girls" factor than the specific technology. I can recall a similar fondness for cleverly folded notes, which would again support my "talking to girls" hypothesis.

Mom, we'll still talk on Sundays.