Eva Bradley: Ringing in my ear a shock

Last night when I was tucked up in bed early with a good book and a cup of tea, I heard the most extraordinary noise. It was high pitched, rather repetitive and coming from the kitchen.
Padding down the hallway, I curiously tracked the noise to its source and was stunned to discover it was the telephone ringing.
Such was my surprise at this that by the time I registered that I actually needed to pick the thing up and answer it, the ringing had stopped.
However, as I stared in wonder at the handset, the damned thing piped up again and gave me such a fright I nearly threw it across the kitchen.
Pressing the answer button and holding the phone to my ear, I nervously said "hello".
The caller turned out to be my friend's mum. Someone from another generation, not so good with computers and about as likely to own a smartphone as a pair of thigh-high stiletto boots.
It explained a lot.
It's not that I don't have a loads of friends with whom I communicate regularly. It's just that we never do it by landline. Ever.
Landlines, like stone-washed denim and Desperate Housewives, have had their day.
Emailing, text messaging, instant messaging, Skyping, Vibering, Facebooking, 4-Squaring, and now, apparently, Google Plusing have all conspired to make landlining a little bit old hat.
In today's digital age, anything analogue is distinctly yesterday.
But in the same way that my communication bills have mushroomed as I pay for broadband and landlines at home and at work and a cellphone with data plan, and of course a mobile data-stick, so too has the time it now takes to check all of my communication portals to see who's been in touch.
At the start of the day I wrestle the online gymnastics of checking work then personal email addresses, Facebook newsfeeds, profile posts and messages, replying to texts via several different web and cellular applications and of course, eventually, checking for messages on my work phone. And my cellphone. And my home phone.
When I remember I have one.
This week I downloaded an application for my iphone which allows me to instantly send short voice messages to friends who can then reply right away over the internet much like a walkie-talkie.
After exchanging about 20 messages each way with a friend and enduring a long time delay for each of them, it did occur to me briefly that it would be far easier to pick up the phone. But only briefly.
So accustomed am I to communicating without actually having a direct conversation that I now wonder if I would be able to sustain a full old-fashioned phone call without reverting to text speak and skipping out all my conjunctions.
For a while now I've been seeing a bit of a bloke from down the way and when he called me on my cellphone recently I actually thought something must be seriously wrong.
What could he possibly have to say to me that couldn't be said via text message or Facebook chat?
Once upon a time the phone rang at home and if we were there we answered it, and if we weren't we didn't. End of story.
There was no "runin l8 c u in 10" or synching calendars to reschedule for another day.
People showed up when they said they would and didn't then spend half the time fielding calls and checking for status updates.
It seems that communication has gotten so sophisticated it is making itself obsolete.
And I can't help wondering if there's a message for us in that ... although goodness knows where I'd go to check for it.
Eva Bradley is an award-winning columnist.