Americans are on their phones all the time and send trillions of text messages every year. Why did we stop calling each other to just check in? One day, I impulsively put aside the Substack scrolling, photo taking, music listening and navigating and tried an underused capacity of my mini computer: I phoned a friend. Much to my amazement, he picked up. “Who died?” he asked with concern. “Is everything OK?” Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.