Nick Fountain

You can send them another one of your favorite episodes.

If you did it, we would be very grateful.

I'm Jeff Guo.

And I'm Nick Fountain.

This is NPR.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for sharing this with a friend.

We have so many ways to communicate these days.

Email, text, WhatsApp, Snap.

Recently, some people have been communicating in the Spotify comments of our podcast episodes or working theories that it's teens trying to get around their phone's parental controls.

Thanks for juicing the algorithm, kids, I guess.

But lately, and I know this makes me sound like a grandpa, I have just been picking up the phone and calling people.

On the phone, there's no subtext.

There's no being left on read.

There's no little ellipsis while you wait for someone to respond.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's instantaneous.

Unlike voice memos, which are an assault on human dignity.

You want to tell me something, but don't want to talk to me about it?

Type it out, bro.

Anyways, the phone.

Try it.