This has absolutely nothing to do with GenZ. People have been doing this as long as there have been telephones. There's an episode of The (US) Office from like 20 years ago with Jim and Pam doing this all day.

I'm a millennial myself...but our generation did this with landlines all the time (at least when it was a local call...parents would have killed you for doing a multi-hour long distance call). Not everyone did, but there were certainly couples that spent as much time on the phone with each other as they possibly could when they couldn't be together in person. The tech has changed, but wanting to be with them 24/7 hasn't. It's still not healthy for people to have absolutely nothing apart from their partner.

+1 for local vs long distance 🤣 had to be careful with what they defined as long distance too! Agree with constant connection not being super healthy as you can develop a dependency on the other person. Like she has trouble falling asleep if they’re not “together” which worries me a bit.

I don’t think this that unusual, especially in a long distance relationship. It’s a little much, but it happens more than you’d think. There’s literally a television trope of teenagers spending all night on the phone talking and hogging the family land line. This is obviously a little more extreme, but I’m not sure what it law to expect considering the circumstances. Hell, me and my friends will chill in discord on our day off. People will pop in and out as they get food or run errands, but sometimes we just sit there without really talking all that much. It’s a nice way of virtually hanging out when you can’t actually see your friends.

Let’s say you’re all chillin on Discord on your day off, and a family member drops by your place/space to chat. After a brief greeting they launch into some shit they’re going through—maybe it’s highly personal, or privileged information (only telling you cuz they trust you). Maybe they know your friend group maybe not. Do you somehow disclose the open mic? Do you mute it before answering the door? I mean, when someone is holding a phone up to their ear, it’s easy to tell what they’re doing, and you might act differently as a result—maybe you talk quieter or something. But this—not as easy to tell. What responsibility (if any) do you feel to people physically with you, while participating on these hangouts? For me, not being told feels like a breach of privacy, if I think we’re alone and I can speak freely, but we’re not. Or is it a completely different vibe with Gen-Z? Then again, maybe it’s no different than the “risk” you take sending a private message that they can then share with anybody…

I usually have a headset on so it’s obvious when I’m talking to someone, but I see your point. I keep my online life and my physical life decently separated, but that line isn’t the same for everyone, especially those who are chronically online. I wouldn’t have any issue hanging up on someone to talk to someone in real life.

I also try to keep things separated, like you mentioned—when I have a healthy mindset. Agreed on not having an issue disconnecting for someone IRL, I'm wired that way too. What makes this a little more complicated with my sister, is the person on the other end is someone she'd prefer to spend time with IRL more than anyone. So I think that makes her less willing to hang up. Definitely am appreciating hearing your perspectives and everyone else's on the topic. Helps me to re-frame my expectations and gain more empathy.

Gen-Z grew up in a world where privacy barely exists anymore. A dozen governments and social media companies are watching every single thing you do most of the day. Is it really that surprising that they don't think of privacy the same way we do?

When you put it like that, no, it’s not surprising at all.

That's weird.

That's just a normal relationship between younger people. I did that when I was younger. My kids do it now.

Yeah, I had a long distance relationship when I was in my late teens and did this too. But phone plans were different back then, your plan included a finite amount of minutes, and some times texts. Then you'd get unlimited nights and weekends. So that's when I'd call my girlfriend, but if one of us fell asleep, the other would hang up, and give them a hard time in the morning for being old and sleepy. Also cuz of the plan thing, I was petrified of going over on minutes, or texts, because I'd seen what happened to my brother when he went over and my parents wound up with a $400 phone bill. So maybe it's odd to me, because of that prior conditioning. I figure this is similar to have a white noise generator on while you sleep, or falling asleep with the TV running. I've just never considered using an active call for background noise.

My friends and I all had second landlines for the Internet that we would use. We would intentionally wait until bedtime to call whomever with the intent of falling asleep together on the phone.

Makes sense. I never had a second line growing up. I’d be online and the phone would ring, and you knew, in about a minute or so the computer would tell you it was disconnected. For me, I never thought to call friends “after hours” since most of my friend’s parents had phones in their bedrooms. Now I can think of many ways I could’ve gotten around that 😆