Reaching Out to Friend Over the Holidays Goes a Long Way
With the year coming to a close, many people find themselves busier than usual. December traditionally means the holiday season is well underway. You may be busy shopping for all of your loved ones, planning holiday parties, decorating your home, and much more. Many families are also traveling for the holidays, taking several days to go visit their friends and families for Christmas.
Right after Christmas, we have New Year’s Eve! Countless individuals spend a great deal of their time playing elaborate New Year’s Eve parties and festivities to share with those closest to them.
Even many businesses are incredibly busy this time of year. If you work in retail, you’ll know how hectic the holiday season can be with so many people doing their Christmas shopping. However, other businesses are just as busy. They typically spend a lot of time closing out all of their tasks for the remainder of the year. They are also getting their business ready for the start of a brand-new year.
With so much going on, it can be incredibly difficult to keep up with everyone. The holiday season is incredibly hectic with Christmas and New Year’s within a week of each other. Additionally, you are more than likely also busy with work, but it’s incredibly important to keep in contact with those in your life.
National Call a Friend Day on December 28th every year was established to remind everyone to take a few moments out of your day to reach out to that one friend you’ve been meaning to talk to you. Lifeworks Counseling Center would like to encourage each of you to take advantage of this day.
Why National Call a Friend Day is Important
In today’s society, technology has connected us more than ever before. We can instantly connect with a friend or family member thousands of miles away in an instant. The internet has made long distances and different times zones no longer large obstacles when it comes to communication.
However, these advancements in technology have also had quite the opposite effect, as well. We are so accustomed to having so much at our fingertips that we often miss out on a lot of life. Our smartphones and the internet grant us access to social media, emails, instant messaging, and so much more. However, all of these options give us too much to focus on.
We often bounce from one task to another or even multitask. Text messaging and direct messaging on social media allows us to not respond to a message for days at a time. These new ways of communication can make us feel less connected than ever before.
With the holiday season approaching, we are even busier than normal. These channels of communication become even more crowded than before, making it hard to keep up with one another.
That’s why taking the time to reach out to a friend via phone call is so important.
Lack of Voice-Based Communication
As we have already mentioned, the internet and the improvements in smartphones have allowed us to communicate in a plethora of new ways. However, these new ways have also reduced how many phone calls are made. In 2014, texting overtook phone calls as the most popular form of communication for those under the age of 50. A UK study found that about 25% of smartphone owners fail to make at least one phone call a week.
More and more people are moving away from communicating with their voices. Texting your friends and family to ask simple questions or figure out logistical, low-priority information may be the best way to communicate. However, more complex matters find spoken conversations to prove more useful.
While the convenience of texting cannot be overlooked, it has its flaws. Instant messaging fails to help build communication skills needed for your personal and professional relationships. It also often feels impersonal and not as genuine.
A study in Psychological Science found that engaging in conversation ignites the language center in a child’s mind, improving their neural processing capacities. It can be implied that having more verbal communications as you get older can help improve how your brain functions
After all, your brain is a muscle, so by engaging in spoken communication, you can give it the exercise it needs.
How to Celebrate
National Call a Friend Day is a wonderful day to take time away from your busy life to reach out to a friend. The holiday season is a wonderful time of year, but for some people, it can be incredibly lonely. Not everyone has the family and friends that you may have, so giving them a call can go a long way.
There are several ways you can celebrate National Call a Friend Day, including:
- Calling a Friend: This is no surprise. The easiest way to celebrate this day is by picking up your phone and calling someone. A couple of minutes of communication can go a long way.
- Call a Random Number: You can take this day to turn a stranger into a friend. During the year, a trend of texting your number neighbor, someone whose phone number was a digit greater or lower than yours, was popular. However, you should be careful if you choose to celebrate this way.
- Video Chat a Friend: As we’ve already mentioned, technology continues to improve. One way it has helped us communicate with each other is with video chats. Not only can you talk on the phone with a friend, but you can also see their face. FaceTime has become the most popular form of video chatting.
- Get a Group Together: Not every group of friends live in the same place. Sometimes, one of them lives far away. Get a group together and call that one friend you haven’t spoken to in a while.
The holiday season can be incredibly busy for many people across the country. From shopping to traveling, it can be hard to find the time to talk to everyone. That’s why National Call a Friend Day was established. It reminds us of the importance of taking the time to speak with one another and to reach out to those we haven’t spoken to in some time. If you are looking for a friend to speak to, Lifeworks Counseling Center is always ready to listen.
