Millennials don't Phone Anymore!

Photo source: Pixabay. Creative Commons

A joke circulating on twitter said “The phone call is becoming the new hand written letter”. And it was right, because a paradigm shift has taken place. Recent surveys show that we are not primarily using our phone to make calls. Nowadays, we are more likely to contact family and friends via alternative means, like instant messaging services.

After a decade of growth, the amount of time we spent talking on our mobile phones went into reverse around 2012. For instance, at the moment, six out of every ten persons from 18 to 24 years old exclusively communicate with each other through ‘apps’ and social networks. Professor Enrique Dans analyses the main reasons of change.

Phone Calls interrupt us

First of all, he points out that phone calls become annoying as we do not expect them anymore. In fact, we tend to link voice calls to outbound telemarketing that interrupt our activities. Millennials see the phone as overly intrusive, even presumptuous. On the one hand, it is about manners, on the other hand, it is also about priorities. They assume that whenever anyone try to reach them on the phone, it is because of an emergency.

Millennials don’t phone anymore

In the second place, the dominant form of communication among young generations, who lead trends, is not phone calls, but text and live video messages. Millennials grew up with a wider array of advanced communication tools that give them the opportunity to communicate in more comfortable ways. For instance, they can organize a party from home, without using the phone. They master technologies that allow them to share information beyond voice, such as photos or videos, and to decide how and when they can be reached.

An Opportunity for Businesses

Finally, Professor Dans highlights the impact of this shift on businesses. Approximately 450 million people are active users on WhatsApp, therefore this new kind of communication approach is already observed as the next powerful telemarketing option for companies.

Figures show that change has already happened. At the present time, enterprises are still on the way to transform their communications and the end of phone calls will face tensions among generations. Anyway, companies that keep one step ahead will obtain the benefits of Real-Time Communications technologies.

Interactive Powers - Streamline your business communications