Phone call length.

Terry

How long do you spend talking on the phone on average?

My normal phone time is around 5 seconds and usually consists of "You going for pints?" Followed by a reply, regardless of if I have made of recieved the call.
However, I have a friend who rings me every so often.
She rang yesterday and, as I was putting down the phone at the end of the call, I noticed that we had been talking for just over an hour. It's normal with calls from her. The woman could talk for Ireland.
I personally hate talking on the phone, but make the exception for her because she is a good friend.

Poll on the way.

Creamy Goodness

i prefer talking over the phone than text messages, there's something about a long story crammed into 160 characters that just doesn't sound right

Terry

Cremo wrote:

i prefer talking over the phone than text messages, there's something about a long story crammed into 160 characters that just doesn't sound right

I think it's the lack of vowels.

cee_jay

Normally it would be about 2 minutes or so for me, but if I ring my best friend probably be over half an hour, especially as I am not living next door to her anymore

Agamemnon

Most of my phone calls are less than a minute, also of the "What pub are you in?" variety. Calls to the parents usually last 5-10 mins. My lady friend and I are in different parts of the country during the week so calls to her can last up to half an hour. :eek:

Ruu_Old

Apart from my folks calling which would be about 15-20 mins, no one else really calls the house.

Telemarketers get less than 10 seconds to have their say.
"Would you like to take a survey".

*hang up*

loismustdie

it depends on who you're talking to, i too ahve friends who have long convo's over the phone but with people you don't actually see often it's necessary, people who you will see later is very pointless but sometimes a story just has to be told immediately

Haven't a Clue

Depends on the person. I also have a theory on how it differs for me and women.

Women will ring up their mates and will start a conversation with 'so, how are you?' and let it go on for 30mins/1 hour with no real purpose to the conversation. Men never, ever do that apart from their girlfriends maybe.

Men keep phone calls as direct as possible as they usually only make them if they are requesting something or have some purpose behind them. They won't spend 5 mins dilly-dallying around before asking what they want - ie. ya for the pub tonight?

That's my theory anyway...

Rb

1-5, but it depends on the person. With the lads, its usually a brief conversation and we'll sort something out i.e pints, but with girls I've found it can just go on for hours, for a while last year my average phone call length must have been around 6 hours due to one girl. Doesn't bother me to sit there talking for so long, just don't like the fact that being on a mobile for that long, frequently, is bad for the health.

AdMMM

Usually all my calls are of the "Hi, Where are you?" variety. Therefore they all last ~ 1 minute and rarely any longer

Mossy Monk

2 or 3 minutes. the odd time though it could be half an hour

Kolodny

On average, I probably spend 5 to 10 minutes on the phone to a friend if it's a just a chat or to make arrangements. Longer if it's my mum as she lives in England and I don't speak to her every week so we usually have a a fair bit to talk about.

Kojak

I'd usually spend only a few minutes on the phone at any one time. Unless it was a very important, it wouldn't last more than 2 minutes.

Nightwish

Usually about 10 mins. Less if its my parents. When my other half and I got together we would talk for hours on the phone - The longest being 7.5 hours from 11:30pm to 7am :eek:

copacetic

my usual call would be 10-30 mins, if there isn't much to talk about I txt not phone.

however to use the OPs example I did just try calling a few random numbers to ask a few people to go for pints.

He's right, those calls do seem to only last 5 secs..

InFront

Usually 1-5 mins. Otherwise, because saying anything shorter would be very simple, I'd just text. If it's my mother or my sister then I'd be talking (i.e. listening) for much longer.

Rb

InFront wrote:

If it's my mother or my sister then I'd be talking (i.e. listening) for much longer.

I'm the opposite, if its a family member, bar my brother, the call will usually be less than a minute. I'm sure its different for anyone living away from home/parents though.

connundrum

I've had my phone about 3 months now, and have talked for 36 hours thus far (both dialled and received). That breaks down to 12 hours a month, and 3 hours a week.

I prefer to ring people anyway, Meteor's great for offering free calls as most people I would call are 085.

Most expensive call was €67.8 when I rang my brother in Cape Town for 'a few minutes' at 4am a couple of years ago

Sam Vimes

Ruu wrote:

Apart from my folks calling which would be about 15-20 mins, no one else really calls the house.

Telemarketers get less than 10 seconds to have their say.
"Would you like to take a survey".

*hang up*

to be fair, people asking you to take surveys are not telemarketers. they're market research people. my gf works for one of those companies so i have a certain sympathy for them. still don't do the surveys though unless its my gf asking

Terry

connundrum wrote:

I've had my phone about 3 months now, and have talked for 36 hours thus far (both dialled and received). That breaks down to 12 hours a month, and 3 hours a week.

I prefer to ring people anyway, Meteor's great for offering free calls as most people I would call are 085.

Most expensive call was €67.8 when I rang my brother in Cape Town for 'a few minutes' at 4am a couple of years ago

Yeah, those long distance mobile calls are a bitch.
I rang a friend in Australia on christmas day one year.
I was at a party with all my friends and the phone was passed around.
It cost something like €20 and wasn't that long of a call either.

I_and_I

Just checked my phone and only spent 2 1/2 hours talking, and sent 234 txt messages since christmas. Funny thing is I hate txting. Don't like talking on mobiles either though I think that is a bit more obvious.

simu

Very little. I hate talking on phones. It's really hard to pick up on people's cues without seeing them or having smilies etc like you do online.

Terry

I_and_I wrote:

Just checked my phone and only spent 2 1/2 hours talking, and sent 234 txt messages since christmas. Funny thing is I hate txting. Don't like talking on mobiles either though I think that is a bit more obvious.

Dude, webtext. Use it.
300 a month from vodafone (and meteor too, I think).
Not that I have ever even come close to using the 300.
Even back when it was only 30 a month, I never used them all up.

Dave!

1-5 mins for me. Just cos I'm a cheap b*stard and don't like wasting credit. If I ring off the house phone then it might be around 15 mins if it's someone I haven't talked to in a few days.

Trinity

I hate talking on the phone. I have 1500 minutes each month to use and i barely use them. So its not the money.

I prefer texts. Sometimes when people call i dont answer if i know they will talk for a long time. I know thats bad but sometimes i just have nothing to say and i hate moaning so unless i have something happy to say - i say nothing.

angeldelight

Before I started going out with my bf the average was about 10 minutes. Now it's at least half an hour, but anything up to 4 hours really

Rabies

It really depends.

Work calls:
Depending on what is needed
1-15min

Family:
Parents call me about every two weeks.
About 15-20min.

Friends:
For drinks less than a 1min.
A couple of friends I don't mind talking to on the phone for a while, prefer meeting in person.

Black Swan

Keep it short. Only have a mobile and it belongs to work, so it's them calling me. Tend to use email and chat to keep the overseas costs down to almost nothing. Don't ye love free wi fi hotspots?

I_and_I

Terry wrote:

Dude, webtext. Use it.
300 a month from vodafone (and meteor too, I think).
Not that I have ever even come close to using the 300.
Even back when it was only 30 a month, I never used them all up.

Yeah I never really think of that it would save me a good bit of cash. I have a thing about not getting the message delivered report as well, I find it very uncomfortable not knowing if the message got where I wanted it to go or not(paranoia).

Rb

Trinity1 wrote:

I hate talking on the phone. I have 1500 minutes each month to use and i barely use them. So its not the money.

I prefer texts. Sometimes when people call i dont answer if i know they will talk for a long time. I know thats bad but sometimes i just have nothing to say and i hate moaning so unless i have something happy to say - i say nothing.

You prefer texting to calling?! I'm the opposite, texts are very impersonal(sp?), though I do text a massive amount, I'd prefer to talk to the person.

Terry

I_and_I wrote:

Yeah I never really think of that it would save me a good bit of cash. I have a thing about not getting the message delivered report as well, I find it very uncomfortable not knowing if the message got where I wanted it to go or not(paranoia).

send the same message to your own phone.
If you get it, then the other person obviously has recieved it too.

Haven't a Clue

Terry wrote:

send the same message to your own phone.
If you get it, then the other person obviously has recieved it too.

What if the other person has their phone switched off or are out of coverage? Ain't no good to you then...

OfflerCrocGod

0 as I never use a phone - active social life see :rolleyes:

Tar.Aldarion

Between a minute and 2 hours.

Bob the Builder

Trinity1 wrote:

I prefer texts. Sometimes when people call i dont answer if i know they will talk for a long time. I know thats bad but sometimes i just have nothing to say and i hate moaning so unless i have something happy to say - i say nothing.

Yep, same as myself! I just "yah" "jazus" "are yah serious" "oh my lord"

...but when i say those annoying things, they annoy my "friend" who I sometimes talk to for about 30mins to an hour, he still thinks I want to talk to him when I dont!

Otherwise, I talk on the phone for at most 2mins, where are you or some other message...

If they upgraded text messages to an ability of 400chars, I would it more... and renamed it from SMS to DMS "deasant messaging service"

EDIT: I would also love the companies to take away that 1500mins free talking, because no1 will actually use it, whereas if they lowered the prices per minute, it might be a help to deflate the phone prices...

Rb

nevf wrote:

If they upgraded text messages to an ability of 400chars, I would it more... and renamed it from SMS to DMS "deasant messaging service"

"Deasant"?What?

Pythia

If I'm ringing for a chat, over 5 mins.
Obviously phone calls to find out one piece of info are different.

hunnymonster

I don't really like chatting on the phone so most calls are of the "I'll be there in 5 minutes" variety. However, For people who live far away it's certainly better than nothing and these calls can last half and hour or more. Thank goodness for skype.

Civilian_Target

All bar one: Usually less than 1 min
Mother: Very long time

So I chose 1-5 mins...

(In 2000, 60% of the worlds population had never made nor received a phone call)

Trinity

rb_ie wrote:

You prefer texting to calling?! I'm the opposite, texts are very impersonal(sp?), though I do text a massive amount, I'd prefer to talk to the person.

Have always loved texting but suppose i have changed a lot recently in that for example, back in the days when i had a life i would have a lot to talk about so i could spend hours on the phone.

Now days my life is soo soooooooo boring i just go to work and back and clean cook and wash and shop. So as you can imagine i aint gotta whole lot to say to anyone anymore and i dont 'do' gossip.

My phone bill was always around the 250 mark, now its down to 140, thats roughly my basic package and i dont use all my texts anymore (which is what was lashing on the extra charges)

1huge1

I used to never even make calls and the ones that I received were always short and under a minute
that was when i was a credit customer with vodafone
i moved to 3 bill pay a year and a half ago and i get 100mins of calls to make every month so thats a incentive for sure
now I find myself just calling people sometimes for no reason and now my social calls are usually above 5 minutes

Time Magazine

Got new phone on Jan 20th.

Since then, there have been:

472/607 messages sent
616/792 messages received
1hr 8mins 28sec of calls received
2hrs 9mins 30sec of calls dialled

Red Hand

About 5 minutes or less for family once a week. Texts or else less than 1 minutes talk-time otherwise.

petes

Spend feck all time talking to mates on the phone. Its usually "where are you?" type calls.

Work is normally fine too during working hours. After hours calls from people at work can vary from 10 minutes to 3/4 hour.

My boyfriend lives far enough away so our phone calls tend to go on for an hour or so each day if we're not careful...

Red Hand

Nightwish wrote:

Usually about 10 mins. Less if its my parents. When my other half and I got together we would talk for hours on the phone - The longest being 7.5 hours from 11:30pm to 7am :eek:

Thats probably more talk-time than I use in a whole year.:eek:

bennyx_o

Average length would be about 5 mins or so, depends on who it is really.

sweet-rasmus

depends. if its a girl we could chat well over 30 minutes. if a guy rings; more like 10 minutes.

Tar.Aldarion

Or for about 7e?