What’s the point of a smartphone?
If you answered “To make calls,” then congratulations: You’re in the minority. A new survey from social communications company CloudTalk has found that making calls is only the fourth most popular activity for smartphone owners… and one that only 43% of Americans actually engage in.
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And the reason that texting, emailing and chatting on social networks (the three top smartphone activities, according to the survey) are more popular than talking to people? Phone calls are apparently “too time-consuming or intrusive,” say the respondents, with nine out of ten people asked admitting that texting is preferable.
CloudTalk CEO David Hayden characterizes the attitude like this: “What we’re seeing at CloudTalk is that people love to talk, as long as, (like text messaging), it doesn’t require our immediate attention, we can respond on our own time and see the entire conversation thread at a glance – it’s just more convenient.”
Not to mention, it’s easier to have time to think up smarter replies when you’re not chatting in real time. But with smartphone users drifting away from voice services, how long before we get a smartphone that doesn’t really work as a phone? (Insert iPhone jokes here, of course.)
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Graeme McMillan is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @Graemem or on Facebook at Facebook/Graeme.McMillan. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.