“Collapsing” might be a bit extreme, but recorded figures indicate complete irradication of personalised ringtones by 2016.

Why, do you ask?

I’ll tell you why. And it’s not because people are getting tired of cute tunes coming out of their phones. They’re just not phoning as much.

This, from Fortune Magazine:

A big reason consumers are eschewing personalized ringtones? Cellphones simply don’t ring as much as they used to.

“People used to talk on their cellphones,” says Frank Dickson, vice president of research at technology analyst group In-Stat. “We’ve become a text-centric society, which takes away from talking, which takes away from ringtones.”In the past two years the average number of text messages sent by each U.S. cellphone user has more than doubled, to 584 texts per month from 218 per month. In that same period the average number of calls has decreased almost 15%.

[more here]

That’s weird, because that was exactly my point in the recent article I wrote regarding cellphones and how times are changing. SMS technology came out long after the telephone and, more to the point, cellphones. Even with voicemail, phoning was a pre-requisite for general day-to-day communication. But then SMS came about and people simply haven’t learnt to kick the habit of phoning for the smallest thing.

I have no idea who this man is
But he seems to understand
[source]

The article in Forbes proves precisely my argument that times are changing and people are trying their damnedest to live the holiday – even if it is just stolen moments here and there. Or rather, more to the point, people are allowing others to live the holiday by extending them the courtesy of SMSing whenever possible, rather than calling. They’re simply embracing the very technology in their/YOUR hands, in the quest for a more peaceful, stress-free existence. You just aren’t used to it yet.

An yes, obviously there are exceptions, and we’ve been through all of them. But why would you, for example, call twice in rapid succession (suggesting an emergency) on a Sunday morning without leaving a message, forcing me to wake up and take the call out of sheer worry, only to ask an extremely non-urgent favour of me? Why would you do that? WHY?! Because it suits you?

Please, get over yourself.

I stand by my claim that, in five years time, it will be deemed rude to call people out of the blue. SMS and email will take over everything. It’s happening already and the recent Forbes article proves I am not alone.

Just watch.

And, before you do anything else, read THIS ORIGINAL 2OCEANSVIBE ARTICLE.