Not us. Although the only working phone is back in the bedroom (hard-wired). Since the battery just died on our cordless phone, we only know we're getting a call when the answering machine turns on (unless we're in the bedroom). For $18 a month, it's a little insurance policy.

what's an "answering machine?"

External voice mail

I vastly prefer Google Hangout. My mom uses Skype all the time.

I'm weird in that I've never cared for instant messaging as a way of communicating with friends. I use it to conduct 90% of my business at work but don't have any IM tools at home.

I prefer inherently asynchronous. I don't want everybody to know I'm online and interruptable.

I just checked my phone history and in the last six months I've made two phone calls to someone other than Lani so Skype doesn't have much use to me (though we did use it for board meetings back when I was more involved with MousePlanet).

They're really starting to push videoconferencing at work over the last year and I really hate it. No offense to my friends but I don't think I would get anything more out of talking to any of them real time with a picture than I do via the quarterly text message.

I'm old and stodgety. Good thing I'm responsible for contributing to my company staying at the forefront of technology.

Back near the turn of the century, I used IM a lot in the evenings. I spend less time on the computer now at night, but nowadays it would never occur to me. Everybody's on facebook if they're online, I assume - so if anyone wanted to chat, they could. It rarely happens.

Interesting how patterns of online communication change over time. Back in the day, I knew lots of people who regularly IM'd - my boyfriend at the time chief amongst 'em. But it seems that trend has disappeared for the people I know. Currently it's all twitter and facebook. Wonder what it will look like in another ten years.