The Telephone Hours: How a Generation is Reclaiming the Phone Call

Boomers had to share a family phone. Connected to the wall. With a wire. Ya know, like some kind of umbilical cord— feeding not a child, but Brenda’s gossip down the line. Millennials texted—perfected the LOL, OMG, and of course the ROFLAMO, which I am still trying to decode (I assume it’s either a government code or a cry for help). That means Gen Z, with its abundance of connection, has become the supreme phone call generation. Not for making appointments, or contacting professionals, but for leaving next to you while you’re homeworking, driving, or even sleeping.

The advent of the silent phone call—parallel play while leaving space for Jesus.

When I stroll on a lunch break, I’ve found the loneliness of midtown suffocating. The sterile, suited masses all in line for Pret to get the same sandwich they got yesterday and the day before (guilty). Without a proper witness to my walk—a proper witness being one who is not from Connecticut—I find myself adrift in the midtown rush, where the closest you come to culture is the halal trucks on the corner of 53rd and Park (bless them).

But a conversation is no longer necessary for connection. For every time I’ve summoned a friend for discussion, I have also accepted the placid compay of silence, and left my phone on the kitchen counter, on the bed, or, for those of true closeness, on the bathroom sink.

Muted, of course. Love is loud, but running water is louder.

And I’m not alone in my extended telephone hours. I’ve long seen my younger brother on the phone with friends, or girls, or some combination of the two, sitting in silence, the slow tick of the clock running longer and longer, doing homework, scrolling, vibing. Strange to come into a room with single occupancy, no murmurs heard from the door frame, and discover you’re entering a party of two. I myself, on many occasions, would call my lover from across the sea in the wee hours of the morn, asking for company as I fell asleep. And he would sit at his computer as I lay in bed, the soft click of the keyboard lulling me to sleep, a lullaby sung in Microsoft Word.

I would wake hours later, with the Italian still on my bed (metaphorical, tragically), typing away and waiting to say “good morning.”

Now, it would be heresy to claim that no other generation had the honor of gabbing on the phone for hours on end. We follow a grand tradition set by elders. But with this quiet comfort of a wordless call, the children of social distancing and sterile isolation have found a way to find company in unexpected ways (even if those ways involve staring at opposite walls in total silence).

Where the phone call goes from here—who can say? Maybe we live in a world that will innovate in ways we’ve never expected. Probably not, at least for a while, but anything’s possible. I wait with bated breath to see what the Alpha generation skibubiddy bops into their telephone, and how they’ll choose to connect.

In the meantime, I keep my friends close—to my ear, to my heart, but mostly to my Verizon unlimited plan. Note: I’m on a family plan older than most child stars, a plan which my mother refuses to let me leave, as any change could shake the gentle balance she’s struck by never updating her original pricing model in 1999. I only pretend to protest; I’ve begun to think of it as my inheritance.

And I am now, as I shall always be, welcoming to any and all who choose to drop me a line.