Something unusual happened to me today. My phone rang.

Now, I spend a lot of time with my phone in my hand. A lot. Facebook, news sites, texts, the occasional game, Twitter, the occasional game, but I virtually never talk on it.

I’m not entirely sure why it’s called a phone.

A name came up on the screen when it made that odd ringing sound that I rarely hear, and it was someone I haven’t talked to in several years. I mean, several years. Like, forever. This was one of those many people we all know who we pretend to connect with through Christmas letter.  Now that I think about it, I’m not sure how she knew my number.

My first thought, of course, was “oh my god…what’s happened?” It isn’t my birthday, it isn’t her birthday (I don’t think so anyway), so something awful must have happened.

But, no. Not really. I mean, some people we know in common have died, and I’m not saying that’s not awful, because, it is, but it didn’t happen today and we both knew of it. So, my point is, there wasn’t a real motivation to call. She just wanted to ask me how I was and what was going on with me.

We talked about each other’s families and reminisced about when we used to work together and people we both knew and what we knew of them now–living and dead.

And then, in fairly short order, ten or fifteen minutes, we said goodbye.

But it was the best part of my day.

Once upon a time, if you wanted to communicate with a friend, you either wrote a letter or called. Now, we email, text, or post on Facebook or Twitter or something equally stupid. True enough, you can’t send pictures during a phone call (at least I can’t). But you also can’t hear someone’s voice on Facebook and you can’t react to the emotion in what they say.

Social media might have a lot of values, but nothing beats talking to a friend. An actual living human being, without a keyboard between you.

We’re separated by miles, and years, and yet when we were talking to each other, we were right there, in the moment. As though I never left. Social media, as “social” as it may be, doesn’t do that. Too many Facebook posts start with the second paragraph, assuming we’re on the same wavelength, watching the same TV program, the same game, experiencing the same whatever; and the truth is, I’ve no damned idea what you’re talking about.

I’m sure there is a lot of research and more than a few doctoral theses on the value of social media or, conversely, the breakdown in communication and human interaction because of social media. But I haven’t read any of that. I’m just a guy whose phone rang today. Out of the blue. And I’m sitting here thinking, why don’t I use that phone as a phone.

I’ll still text and post on Facebook, but, if you know me, or we knew each other once upon a time, don’t be too terribly surprised if your phone rings one day. And it will be some odd number you don’t recognize and you’ll let it go to voicemail. Then you’ll discover it was me. And I hope you’ll call back.

And whoever you are, reading this, if there’s someone you haven’t talked to in a long time, maybe you should pick up your phone and push that phone button.  That’s what it’s there for. (It’s the one with the icon that looks like what a phone used to look like.) You might be surprised at what happens.