Coronavirus Quarantines Lead to a Resurgence in Actual Phone Calls

When’s the last time you actually picked up your phone and called someone instead of texting them?

Odds are it may have been pretty recently, now that much of the world is being forced to shelter in place due to the coronavirus pandemic. “There is no substitute for touch, sadly, but the warm timbre of a human voice in your ear is more real, more present, than text on a screen,” writes Tim Kreider in The New York Times.

Noting that “AT&T’s old slogan was ‘Reach out and touch someone,'” he adds, “When you hang up after a phone call, you feel some of the residual glow of having been with another human being.”