The Decline of Communication with Voice Calls

The invention of the telephone unlocked endless possibilities for us to communicate with each other. Instead of having to schedule to meet someone somewhere or rely on running into someone at a convenient location, we were able to directly communicate with them through a voice call. Personally, I remember how imperative it was in elementary school to memorize your friend's home telephone number. This all changed when the cell phone became a social norm for people to have in their possession. With cellular phones, this allowed people to save numbers into their contacts, alleviating them from the task of having to memorize someones number. The advantages of having a cell phone increased even more when the first iPhone was sold to the public in July of 2007. Initially, this didn't leave a huge impact on how many people that owned a landline phone, but as the years continue, more and more people are ditching the landline phones and using cell phones instead. The convenience in cells phones is that the user could use it to voice call another contact or to send a text message to the contact directly. Also, cell phones offered an open application developing platform. This allowed any user to develop their own applications for the cell phone device. Lo and behold, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and other social media applications adapted their platform to fit the cell phone 'mold'. These apps specialize in the sharing and browsing of other peoples social lives. As they developed in time, users started to rely more heavily on these specific applications to communicate with others. These applications soon offered opportunities for instant communication. This slowly and methodically is killing off the idea of communicating through voice calling. It really makes you hesitant to even call the devices cell phones anymore.