Despite other technology, American families still call Mom to stay in touch

Greeting cards are great, flowers are fabulous, and email is engaging, but if Mom has her choice, she'll want to hear the sound of your voice!

Many people use special occasions as reasons to pick up the phone.  Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, holidays, birthdays and anniversaries represent peak telephone usage for family members who aren’t able to see each other in person. But people also report that they are just as likely to give their family “a buzz” with no agenda in mind other than catching up, chatting or receiving emotional support. 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 not only on special occasions, such as Mother's Day, but throughout the year.

According to a recent survey conducted by Modern Woodmen of America, a fraternal financial services organization, 87 percent of Americans frequently rely on the telephone to communicate with family. Americans are getting up to speed with technological conveniences, such as email -- more than 55 percent of the survey’s respondents said they use email at least occasionally. 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.”

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 and providing companionship.

“Both email and the telephone have their advantages, but people use them for different, specific reasons and to complement one another,” says Dommick. “Telephone communication rates very high in sociability. It is definitely more relationship based.”

“I told my husband when we moved away from my family that he would have to put up with higher phone bills,” says Bainter. “We see my family about once a month, but my relationship with them is definitely stronger because we communicate regularly in between those times.” 

Nothing beats a hug

“While telephone, email and the Internet have d