The telephone is reigning! 
Despite other technology, American families still call to stay in touch.

When it comes to communicating with our family, the telephone remains integral. We call when a new baby is born, we call to say happy birthday, and we call to say that Sunday dinner is at Aunt Jean’s at 12:30 p.m. We also call to laugh together, cry together, to say “I love you” or simply say “hello.” More than any other form of communication, and second only to actually being together in person, the telephone serves as a tremendous catalyst for strengthening family bonds.

According to a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive^® and sponsored by Modern Woodmen of America, a fraternal financial services organization in Rock Island, Ill., an overwhelming 95 percent of Americans still rely on the telephone to communicate with family. Americans are getting up to speed with technological conveniences, such as email, instant messaging and family Web sites – over 62 percent of the survey’s respondents said they use email. But for most people the telephone is more spontaneous, more insightful, more emotionally gratifying and the most convenient of all the long-distance communication options.

A more personal way to communicate

The telephone offers advantages that most other communication methods don’t have – it’s live, it’s two-way, and it can stimulate a mental image of the other caller simply through the voice inflections and subtle nuances that accompany the spoken words.

“I can tell exactly how my mother-in-law is doing just by hearing her answer the phone,” emphasizes Pam Schultz of York, Penn. “I can picture her face, and I know what’s in her head.”

Survey results imply that Americans will continue to rely on the telephone no matter what other methods are made available to them. Seventy-three percent of men and 74 percent of women stated it would still be the preferred means, even if online methods were possible.

“I’m just not an email person,” admits Jane Bainter of Eldridge, Iowa. “The phone is just quicker and more personal. My family members all have email, and they use it to send us jokes and stories, but we don’t really use it to communicate with each other.”

Jackie Court of Aurora, Ill., is a mother of three girls and the grandmother of five children ages three to eight. While she uses email regularly, she finds that phone conversations are often more satisfying.

“I use the phone more often for a variety of reasons,” says Court, who sees her daughters and families monthly. “Convenience. Sometimes habit. Immediate response. Most of all, I think I enjoy hearing the voice. For business purposes I prefer email, but for personal use I prefer the phone.”

According to John Dommick, professor of journalism and communication at Ohio State University and coauthor of a study on email and telephone usage, this is no surprise. Respondents in his study rated the telephone superior to email for expressing emotion and affection, giving advice an