Insulting Gen Z with Your Phone #158

Boomers, like me, think that our phones should be used for calls. Telephone calls. Even though I have a smartphone and use it for Duolingo, picture taking, podcasts, online banking, credit cards, music, getting an Uber or Lyft, Venmo, Wordle and Connections, and texting, it should just be for phone calls.

I guess my phone is used for more than just talking. OK Boomer. Things are different. 

According to the Google, the way smart phones are used has changed quite a lot. It was in 2007 that text messages took over as the preferred mode of mobile phone usage. The first year of data in 2008 showed that each cell phone owner averaged 357 texts and only 204 phone calls per month. And in America, in 2025, there were over six billion text messages sent. On a daily basis. 

But there is a huge difference between the ages. Eighteen to 24 year olds are sending or receiving 128 texts per day. My age cohort is only 16 per day.
In addition to calling more than texting, my etiquette skills are woefully lacking. I will just call when I need to talk to someone. That’s not how Gen Z sees things.  48% of them will text someone to request permission to call them. And over three quarters of Gen Z will let a phone call ring and ring and ring and not answer it in the hope that the person will text them instead. A lot of Gen Z won’t even set up their voicemail system. 

There are a lot of things I don’t understand about the youth. One piece of new knowledge is that I am insulting when I text. Apparently, my rudeness manifests itself because I use proper grammar, capitalization, and punctuation in a text message. Who knew?