From Texting to Talking

Earlier this year, I became curious about how I was maintaining my relationships. Like many people, I text frequently, but based on research I was exploring along with other discussions, I wondered how often I was actually speaking with friends.

So, nerd alert, I created a spreadsheet.

I tracked my text and voice engagement over a three-month period with close friends and dozens of people in my broader circle. I didn't include family members and friends I regularly see or speak with in person, by phone, or over video. I wanted to better understand the relationships that were being sustained primarily through digital communication.

The results were revealing.

What surprised me wasn't the number of texts. It was how infrequently some of my close friends and I actually spoke.

The data showed just how much I depended on texting to maintain relationships. While texting is convenient and helps us stay connected, I began to wonder whether convenience had quietly replaced deeper forms of connection.

Then I read a note from Dr. Vivek Murthy discussing a recent study showing that we speak fewer words to one another each day than we did last year and even fewer every year for the past fifteen years. His observations resonated with what I was seeing in my own life.

Since then, I've made a conscious effort to move beyond text messages and create more opportunities for phone calls, video chats, and time together. It takes more effort, but the conversations are richer and the connections feel deeper. A twenty-minute phone call often leaves me feeling more connected than weeks of text exchanges.

This is still an ongoing experiment, and I may have more to say about it in the future. For now, I'd encourage you to take a look at your own communication habits. You may discover, as I did, that a little more voice-time can go a long way toward strengthening connections and relationships.