I continue to be amazed that we seem to be abandoning the phone, which continues to be highly reliable, in favor of email, which is much less reliable.
Twice in the past couple of weeks two different people commented that I had been "out of touch." In both cases, they had sent me email. For different reasons, both emails had gone astray, and they assumed I was ignoring them. But I just had not received the emails. In one case, the email was delivered several days late--no apparent reason--it just happened. In another case, the email was sent to an account that I do not check daily.
But neither individual thought to pick up the phone and call, and I've seen this happen enough that it seems to be a trend. All sorts of things can happen to email--it can be filtered as spam, we can delete it accidentally when trying to select multiple messages, it can be discarded by a server if an attachment that is too large. The sender can have a typo in the address that sends it to the wrong person, as just a few examples.
Some of my colleagues and I find text messages useful to verify the availability of someone. Text messages are unobtrusive and represent a completely different communications channel that works well most of the time.
It is strange that in a time of so many communications options, we still have trouble communicating.