The way we communicate with each other in 2012 is funny. I really wonder if communication has taken a step forwards or backwards sometimes.

Communication (Photo credit: P Shanks)

The problem with so many choices for modes of communication is that people have their desired way to communicate and that’s it, no compromise. With so many options, many of us are on different pages and holding to firm to our predilections.

For instance, I hate the phone. I don’t want to talk on it. I don’t want you to call me on it. I don’t want it to ring at my house. I love email. That is my favorite way to communicate. Yes, even to the exclusion to an in-person chat most of the time and for most people other than close family and friends. I know, I need to work on that.

My husband, on the other hand, is thrilled that you called. He wants to talk to you. He wants to talk to me. Email is not his favorite mode of communication, because he is not chained to his email like I am (It’s a comforting chain, not too tight. Like those plastic handcuffs police use now instead of steel ones). After being together for almost 24 years, we still have a daily ritual whereby he calls me with details I consider mundane, and then I feel bad because I’m clearly giving him the “I need to go” signal (usually by actually saying “I need to go”), followed by his response of “Ok. I was thinking for dinner we could have . . . .”  And on it goes.

My kids want me to text them and want to reach me by text. Luckily, texting is the unspoken, agreed-upon method of reaching each other in our household.

One of my co-workers refuses to text me. He hates it. He likes voice mail. Long voice mails. I listen to them, and then text him. He responds with another voice mail. Stubborn, aren’t we?

The choices are too many and there needs to be agreed-upon rules, especially in workplaces and households.

What’s your favorite way to communicate? What do you think all the options says about us as a culture?