The young digital natives of the world are growing up, but some of them are learning the art of listening, conversation and connection using an older technology right here in the Yarra Ranges.
A Yarra Ranges parent is hoping to build momentum and bring back the home phone for kids and families across the area, posting last week across social media.
The family have had great success and heartwarming moments of connection with direct family and friends over the last few years after connecting a home phone to their landline.
Parent Olivia Cozzolino said that as their kids grew up they had begun to leave a phone with them as a means to contact them, but it wasn’t quite working.
“We just had the idea of, well, what about a landline?” she said, after seeing a media report on landline use.
Oliva said they realised they had a home number already included with their service, but the real challenge was sourcing a phone.
“I started some research on, well, where do you even buy a landline these days?” she said.
The family also didn’t want to get set up and be bombarded with spam every night.
“I had seen threads where people talked about the volume of spam they got,” said Olivia.
After some research, they discovered that there are landline phones that have been developed to block spam calls, and the family soon found one secondhand.
“However, the technology’s been designed, it works because in the one or two years that we’ve had it, we’ve not received one single spam call,” said Olivia.
With the landline included in their regular bill, the landline has been a low-cost solution to a practical problem that soon grew into a heartwarming part of day-to-day life.
“The novelty of having a phone in the house meant the kids, just out of curiosity, started ringing the grandparents and my brother, and discovered the joy of having a phone call,” said Olivia.
Connecting beyond family and hoping to stave off purchasing the phone for their 12-year-old, Olivia said he now has friends he calls after school as well.
“It’s just like I remember when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s, I would get home from school and then spend hours on the phone to the friends that I’d been at school with all day,” she said.
“It strengthens those friendships, having those conversations outside of school.”
According to a report which shows the ways Australian adults connect and interact in 2024, and how this has changed over the past eight years, by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, landline phone calls at home have continued to fall.
One in six or 15 per cent used a landline phone for calls, down from 18 per cent in 2023.
People aged 75 and over are still more likely than all younger age groups to have made a landline call.
Across the board, apps play an increasing role in how Australians communicate, with more people using voice calls via an app in 2024.
Younger Australians are generally heavier users of apps to communicate, but it is older Australians who are driving this growth.
In 2024, Facebook was Australia’s most widely used communication or social media website/app.
Not just about going old school, but hoping to deepen connection and community, Olivia said, if more people get on board and use their landlines in the Yarra Ranges, they can build their networks.
“I’m just so conscious that we’re experiencing a loneliness epidemic in the world,” she said.
“We’re so digitally connected, but we’re becoming more and more disconnected.”
The family are not anti-technology, but is mindful of device usage in their household.
“We absolutely use technology, but we’re very mindful of how much time is spent on devices and screens,” said Olivia.
“I really want to foster those in-person relationships and friendships for the kids, and make sure they do develop really good social skills and learn the art of conversation and learn how to listen.”
Payphones still have a place for the family as well and when their kids go out for a ride on their bikes, Olivia said they know how to use the local phone box to call home if they need to.
“It’s gone from being just a bit of novelty to saying – Okay, now that you’re we’re trusting you to be out and about by yourself. If you do need to call us, and you’re not with anyone who has a phone, use one of those phone boxes,” she said.
The landline has paid off big time for the household and offers a bigger depth of connection beyond a screen.
“I’ve noticed happens with video calls is my kids get very distracted by their own image and the filters,” said Olivia.
“The thing that has been lovely is their ability to spend more time with their grandparents, uncle and friends,” she said.
When the phone rings, the kids know it is for them and get excited every time.
“People are too scared to pick up the phone for a chat these days – I’d love for more families in the hills to start getting landlines so we can delay, even maybe by a few years, the need for the kids to have a smartphone as the only means of communicating with friends,” said Olivia.
