Ann Moore spoke for much of her generation earlier this month when she pleaded for human contact, as opposed to digital.
The chief executive of publisher Time Inc. bemoaned the rise of e-mail, text and multimedia messaging at the expense of voice communication, and she touted the advantages of old-fashioned landline telephones.
Speaking to the Chicago Network women’s business group, the 59-year-old Moore received enthusiastic applause when she advocated a ban on the “reply to all” e-mail function that clutters inboxes coast to coast. “There’s a lot of wasted time and effort in America,” she griped.
The results are pouring in, and Moore’s lament hasn’t changed the trend: Voice down, digital up.
Last week’s financial reports from giant carriers Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. illustrate the dramatic shift from voice service to data-intensive wireless communications, undeterred by the recession.
AT&T’s wireless service revenue rose 10 percent in the most recent quarter, while wireline voice fell 12 percent, and not just because of its exclusive service for Apple Inc.’s popular iPhone. The latest growth is merely “the tip of the iceberg,” the company’s chief financial officer told analysts.
For years, technology gurus have predicted a revolution in how Americans connect, but it never seemed to come as fast as they expected. In mobile wireless, everything from long service contracts to spotty infrastructure and the slow pace of smart-phone adoption confounded them.
The iPhone’s debut in 2007 coincided with less visible advances driven by mobile messaging. The new iPad, fitting between smart phones and laptops, adds to the momentum.
“We have the right devices, the right networks and the right applications,” said Roger Entner, senior vice president of research and insights at the Nielsen Co. “It’s finally happening on a massive, massive scale.”
It’s a youthquake. At the end of last year, the average wireless subscriber sent fewer than three texts for every phone call, while teens age 13-17 sent almost 18 texts for every call.
Smart-phone penetration, which greatly encourages tapping into the Internet, is set to rise from 21 percent of all subscribers at the end of last year to 50 percent-plus by the end of 2011, according to Nielsen.
A Pew Research Center study unveiled last week hinted at the shift afoot, showing that half of all U.S. teens send 50 or more text messages a day. Texting is far preferred to leaving a voice mail or, at times, talking directly, even in the same room.
The Washington Post recently reported that Japanese teenage girls, savants of the wireless world, protect their phones with American-style Ziploc bags to enable waterproof texting from the bathtub. Living life through the cell phone means blogging, social networking and video sharing pretty much nonstop.
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What does it mean for relationships?
Some view it as a boon. Being constantly connected brings people closer, making them more empathetic and better informed about their friends and loved ones.
Privacy is a worry, of course. Mobile devices can pinpoint a user’s location and provide contextual information that borders on the creepy: It’s possible, for instance, to point a phone at a building and see if a friend is online inside. Advances in the computer-generated imaging known as “augmented reality” promise to go much further in that direction.
Worries, in fact, abound, including flash mobs, sexting, distracted driving, atrophied powers of concentration and a decline in the art of handwriting.
Time CEO Moore puts herself firmly in the “let’s talk” camp.
An internal study she commissioned of BlackBerry addiction among her People magazine staffers turned up alarming rates of inefficiency. Managing the onslaught of digital messages was threatening to poison the workday.
The antidote: conversation. Every Sunday, Moore told the Chicago crowd, she cooks dinner for her family and their 20-something friends, sharing ideas orally and each other’s company, face to face.
You’ve got to wonder what her youthful guests might be texting to each other under the table.