The amazing new use Gen Z has found for their smartphones ..talking

Given the choice of all the things you can do with your smartphone, I've always been a fan of talking on them. Now after a generation of texters, it's looking like Gen Z is agreeing with me.

Kira Russell whose 22 and lives at the Jersey shore tells the New York Post she'd much rather talk than text. "I would much rather tell somebody, ‘Omigod, I got a new job’ or that I did something cool,” said Russell, who prefers to communicate through phone or, better yet, Facetime video calls. “Seeing their reaction to what we’re talking about just makes it feel more personal to me.”

To me, that's the best part of the phone, being able to talk to those you never get to see. You can learn so much from the expression of their voice, especially when it comes to clarity. How many times have you taken a text out of context? What if someone forgets to add the "kidding" emoji?

Unfortunately, we talkers are in the minority, Also according to the New York Post.

"On average, Americans text twice as much as they call, and text message response rates are 209 percent higher than those from phone calls, according to The Local Project’s U.S Texting statistics. Cell phone users ages 18 to 24 send and receive an average of 3,853 texts a month, up 635 messages from Pew Research’s text messaging report in 2011."

Despite those statistics, the Post says there are many millennials and zoomers preferring to use their phones for conversation rather than spend time texting back and forth. I applaud those people. Their social skills will be so much better as they get older.

I think in a time like this in the world, we need to be communicating with each other as much as possible and the best way to do that is by actually talking. You'll get a much better reaction that you would from a text.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Steve Trevelise. Any opinions expressed are Steve's own. Steve Trevelise is on New Jersey 101.5 Monday-Thursday from 7pm-11pm. Follow him on Twitter @realstevetrev.