Big Zuu on the importance of phone conversations

Zuu: For me growing up, speaking on the phone was one of the most important things we used to do. Social media, phones, they've taken over how we communicate. When you hear someone's voice, you get to hear their true emotion. You get to hear how, how they really feel. A lot of young people are not speaking on the phone. They're using social media, texting, WhatsApp as ways to communicate, and for me, growing up, speaking on the phone was one of the most important things we used to do. And I think it's important for people to take a text and make it a call, is because research by ID Mobile and Mental Health UK has shown the impact it has on people. Speaking on the phone actually increases your higher levels of positivity and and also alleviates pressure that you get from things that you would have said on text, things that you would have explained via message. Social media, phones, they've taken over how we communicate. You know, when I was younger, growing up, we used to talk to your friends. You had to call them on a landline. Um, so I feel like now, in this day and age, where we have so much access to technology, it's easier to just message, it's easier to speak to your family on WhatsApp, it's easy to just text. And, you know, it takes time to to make a phone call, you have to, you have to commit your time and energy towards that, and I think what I think is that sometimes where we where we're all so consumed by our own lives, sometimes it's hard to take time out to, to to speak to others. But the importance of that is, is is overwhelming, especially when it comes to mental health, when it comes to how you feel when it comes to expressing. So I think I think young people obviously are having to, to deal with so much in life, whether it's their exams, whether it's deciding what job they're going to do, whether it's finding themselves. So spending time to talk to your friends on the phone is probably isn't the main priority for them. But we all know how alleviating it can be when you speak to someone about the things that you're going through. It's it's it's the hardest thing to overcome is when you're going through something real, when you're going through something negative or something painful or just something that's tough. Um, but speaking about it always makes me feel better after, and I think for young people, a lot of times it's, it's that support that they need and sometimes you might not feel supported by the people around you. And sometimes you need to talk to someone about that, and it could… It doesn't have to be your closest friend. It could be someone that you don't really speak to you that often, or it could be a family member who haven't had it in a long time. But when you when you say what you're going through and you express how you're feeling, most times, if not all the time, you feel better after. When you hear someone's voice, you get to hear their true emotion. You get to hear how how they really feel. And one of the great things that we got to highlight was when someone tells you "I'm okay" or "I'm doing fine". You never really get to hear, like the tremble in their voice or the happiness in their voice. Some words don't express the true meaning. So when you do get on the phone and you say something, someone can double back and be like, are you sure? Or did you mean that? Or is that how you feel? And I think that's the main difference. A voice note is a good way to communicate, but a voice note is is still not in real time. A voice note, people have to take their time to listen to it, and they can reply to it when they want. A voice note is not as free flowing as a conversation, so you still express through a voice note, but compared to a call, it's not the same thing. It doesn't hit the same. It doesn't feel the same. Um, sometimes you put off a voice note, sometimes you don't listen to it. You don't concentrate when you listen to it. Sometimes when you're sending a voice note, you can resend it, you can redo it, whereas conversation is live. It's real. There's there's no there's no way to edit it. And that's how you I think that's how you truly do get to express. The easiest way someone could check in on someone today is literally by giving them a call, drop them a call. It doesn't have to be an intense conversation. It doesn't have to be something that's completely life changing. It could literally be just checking in, asking someone how they're doing, asking someone had their days going, asking someone what their plans are for the week. Are they working on anything special right now? Is there anything they're excited about? And then you see where the conversation takes you.