As for all the extra voice minutes, we’re inventing new reasons for a phone call everytime the barrier to calling is dropped. I phone my wife around 3-4 times a day, for reasons as abitrary as to ask what’s in the post, to check her opinion on something to buy or if we’re planning a trip, or to check what we need for dinner.

We haven’t needed to invent new reasons to call – we’re social animals, and will communicate if it’s possible. What’s changed between now and 1987 is the near ubiquity of mobile telephony. That presence has made it easier to call more often.