The future of communication?

Whilst I think he makes a point that communication differs through the ages. My parents turn their phones off at night, one time when they had to pick me up from the airport they got the date wrong (+1 day on the flight time) and because of the time difference between Canada and the UK my dad was about half-way to the airport before he turned on his phone and got my text message telling him "I fly on the #, I arrive on #+1. I haven't even packed for the flight yet!"

To me cell phones are redundant. I grew up with the internet, and I love wireless networking. I really don't see the point in making a call, when I can just click a button on an IM client and I have video and voice for free.

However, I seriously doubt people will leave calls on perminantly even if they are free unless an automatic hold feature is implemented. I mean what if you talk to your kids before you go to bed, do you really want your conversation in the morning to be, "Wow dad, you -really- satisfied mom last night!"

I can say it right now, 24/7 calls like fuck they're going to happen in my house. We had calls that was I believe $0.05 per call no matter the duration and I was on for up to 5 hours sometimes, but I -always- hung up because it's just damn creepy not to.

Insightful--this will actually happen. I've already been in some telecommuting relationships (professional) where we just leave the ip video phone on constantly. You don't have to call to communicate, you just talk to the phone as if the person was in the room. If they're not at their desk you can see that easily on the video screen.

That's swell. And although it's not the subject of the article, it seems to me that the distinction between "good enough" and "good" is lost on the always-on, no-land-line cell phone crowd. Most of the time, it's still miserable to talk to someone when they are on a cell phone.