Cell phone for my Wife and I is only for important stuff when we are away from home. I can’t imagine wanting to chat on one.
The sound quality is usually much worse on the cell, and the darn things are hard to hold on to.
Hey, they are great. They are convenient. I use mine when I travel or am away from home.
If you know someone may be at home, and know they have both type phones and pay per minute on the cell phone, calling the home phone first is correct. But admittedly that’s a lot of qualifiers.
For such a task, I send a text message.
Like other posters, I (and pretty much everyone I know) only has a cell, so I don’t really give much thought to the cell/land line distinction. I call you on your number, and don’t care what type of phone that number is connected to. And I screen incoming calls; if I want to talk, I do. If not, it goes to voicemail.
I mostly call cell phones for local people, but for friends further away, I usually call home phones. Mostly, I think, because I’m calling to chat, so I figure if someone’s home, they can chat. For local people, it’s more just calling to check in and make plans.
One exception: a local friend I will typically only call on her cell. She has teenagers, so when I left messages on her home phone, she never got them. (Until I started leaving messages that started, “I’ll give $5 to whichever one of you gives your mom the message.” That worked, until their mom put a stop to it as a bad precedent.)
But I agree that most people nowadays are likely to have a cell phone that they use almost exclusively. I’m not sure why I still have a home phone; I never use it.
[old fogey] That’s actually a good idea. Never occurred to me. My friends and I simply don’t text, period. [/of]
I’ve been thinking about the friends’ numbers that I have. I honestly don’t know whether or not they are cell numbers or landline numbers (okay, some of them I’ve figured out but some I haven’t). Like someone else said, I call the number I have.
I think the lines between cellphone and home phone are so blurry these days that you can’t really make an assumption about not using a cellphone unless it’s an emergency anymore. I mean shit, how many fucking idiots do you see in cars with their phones up to their ears? Or those “douchebags” we love to rag on that wear their bluetooth earpieces constantly?
I think those days are over, my friend.
Damn, [sigh] I think you may be right. I guess I am old or outdated or something. I know many young people who do not have land lines, but I have one at home and one at work. Neither are far from arm’s reach. That leaves the time I am driving home or to work. The only other time I have is when I am on my time with the wife. I may have to get used to this (not so) new technology.
SSG Schwartz
The only people I call who still have land lines are older and had established households before cell phones became common. This category is basically my parents and other relatives. When calling them I use the landline unless told otherwise. All my friends use a cell phone as their primary phone. With that as my standard of normal it wouldn’t occur to me that a cell phone should only be used for urgent business.