Text before You Call

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     There was a simple social practice I recall from my youth. We would simply drop-by the homes of our relatives and close friends for a visit. I was quite a natural thing to do. Mostly it was on the weekends but even, occasionally, on a week night. We never called ahead. We just did it. If they were home, we would be invited in and we would visit for a bit.
     Others dropped by our house as well.  It was a reciprocal thing and it was never an intrusion. After all, they were family and friends. In fact, all of this dropping-by seemed to an acceptable practice in our Detroit Armenian community. Even when no one was expecting company, the coffee was immediately put on and, amazingly, a spread was soon on the table. In our teenage years one of my bandmates once summed it up perfectly, “no matter whose house we end up at, I am amazed at how quickly each of our moms can have the table set and full of food… and they never knew we were coming over.”
     This practice of dropping-by lasted up through when I got married and then it began to change. These days, I always call first to see if it would be ok to drop by. Doing so without a call simply seems intrusive. Calling ahead seems like the proper and polite thing to do.
     Recently, I have noticed a expansion of this practice to even making a phone call. Now, rather than call, I tend to text folks to see if it would be OK to drop-by. In fact, I am texting people, with increasing frequency, to see if it OK to give them a call them? My thinking these days is that a phone call is also intrusive, though not as intrusive as the drop-by has becomes
     I am not alone in this behavior. More and more, folks are texting me to see if it is OK to call and, actually, I appreciate it.
     Why have our behaviors changed? Certainly, we can attribute much of it to our ever-busier schedules. We are on the go, all the time. Our work days are busy, and those workdays have gotten longer do to phones, laptops, e-mails, conference calls, and even globalization. For the same reasons our work weeks have spilled into our weekends which have gotten more congested with errands, children or grandchildren activities, tending to aging parents, and still trying to have a social life. Our time is more valuable than ever and, so, we guard and manage the time more diligently. Thus, we appreciate a call to see it is OK to drop by versus a surprise drop by. And we appreciate a text to see if it is convenient to call. These are the new norms.
     The world has changed in other ways. We have amazing home entertainment systems are these days combined with Netflix and other streaming services. Every movie and series every made is theoretically available to us on-demand. Why go to the movies? Furthermore, with services Uber Eats and GrubHub people are ordering-in their favorite foods. Why go out to eat? It is easier, especially after or amidst a hectic work/school week, to simply hole up in the warmth and comfortable confines of our homes, our cocoons. More and more we value this solitude and thus appreciate less and less the unexpected drop-by or phone call we weren’t expecting.
    As far as I can see, this is not a new trend. In May 2006, I penned a monthly letter: Porches. In which I commented on how, in my lifetime, the very communal and social front porch has given way to the patio and backyard where we see and talk to our neighbors less frequently. We have moved to having man-caves, studies, and TVs in every room or entertainment on our cell phones. This provides the possibility to isolate ourselves even more in our own homes.
     

It is quite a dichotomy that in the world of growing social connectivity due to technology, many are craving more and more control of when we actually see and talk to others. On second, thought it might not be such a dichotomy…