Some people are saying that voicemail is dead, and we should all be emailing or texting instead. Not sure how I feel about this. I have family members who are ONLY accessible via text, and sometimes this is a pain in the ass, frankly. I have an ollllllllld cell phone (counting down to my new iPhone!!) and I HATE texting. I’m an old-school grammarian, y’all, and I just cannot make myself send messages to people without proper spelling and punctuation. On the other hand, texting is sometimes the most convenient option, and it certainly can be a pain in the ass to retrieve and listen to voicemail. And I know I’m much faster in responding to emails, myself.
On the third hand, sometimes tone and expression are important. Text and emails are notoriously difficult to contextualize – we’ve all had the experience where someone tries to crack a joke and it just comes across as hostile, for example. So I feel like voicemail should at least be an option, no? Am I hopelessly out of touch?
What do you think?