When it comes to cell phones in Sofia, I have a lot of mixed reactions.  I hate that people will answer their phones in a movie theater or will forget (or simply ignore the request) to turn off their phones in the theater, opera or ballet. I hate that my students are so sneaky with their phones and can't just keep them in their pockets for 40 minutes of class. But more than this I hate that I don't really get the cell phone culture in this country.

So this past week in my elective, American Culture and the American Magazine, we discussed just this issue.
<blockquote>When do you call, text and would you ever leave a message on someone's voice mail?</blockquote>
My students reported this: they would rather call than text message, they would never leave a voice mail (and in fact, most of them have disabled their voice mail s that it never even pick up) and they wouldn't hesitate to call back a number that they didn't know if they missed a call from said unknown number.  Okay. Then they told me that they know Americans <em>love</em> to text.

We then talked about this: why call over texting? I am told you call rather than text because it's better to talk to someone in person and in a short phone call you can get much more information than you would exchanging four or five text messages.  This is fair.  I'd agree with this.

I do like to talk to people but I also think there's a place and a space for texting--<!--more-->informal invitations for coffee, dinner and the like as well as confirming plans, the meeting place or to let someone know you're on your way but running late or even to send a quick hello to let someone know you're thinking of him or her.  Oh and I almost forgot, you text if and when you suspect that your friend(s) might be somewhere loud and not hear their phone ring (then you have to hope they have the phone on vibrate and ring).

So if you decide that you're going to call someone to catch up, to make plans, to share good news or to otherwise talk and the person you are calling doesn't pick up then what? Well, more likely than not you leave a voice mail. Your voice mail probably says something like: sorry I missed you.  I was just calling to catch up with you/invited you to x/to see how you are and then you might add call me back when you get a chance or don't worry well talk tomorrow when I see you at school/work/happy hour or whatever the case may be. If you call, your friend doesn't answer and you don't leave a message their is no obligation to return the call.  Finally, if you get a call from an unknown number more often than not you'll screen the call and let it go to voice mail.  Then you can listen to the message and to see if you should return the call or not.  No message means that you will not return the call.

I explained all of this and my students just kind of looked at me.  (Um, do I all of a sudden have three heads?) Their response was this: <em>really?</em> (Nope, I am actually making this up.) My response was: yes, really. Then we started talking about all of this.

At some point, it struck me that Bulgaria must not have had an answering machine culture in the 1980's and the 1990's and without an answering machine culture why would there be a voice mail culture today? Either the person picks up or they don't.

Thus the conversation confirmed what I more or less already knew--no need to leave a voice mail in Bulgaria.  But my Bulgarian teenagers were unable to distinguish, illuminate or create rule of thumb on when to call versus when to text.  I pushed them but all they could articulate was the fact that it's much nicer to talk to someone rather than to text message.  (Why, oh, why then do they seem to spend so much texting at school? and who are they texting?)

And so I am left with this age old quandary: to call or to text?

(<em>Thank-you Shakespeare</em>.)