In this day and age almost everyone in the United States has an answering machine of some sort. Whether it be an actual answering machine or a voicemail box there usually is an avenue to leave a message if someone is unavailable to speak at the moment they receive a call. With our busy lifestyles now, the answering machine is basically an essential item in every household. It has gotten to the point where if a phone call is made and no answering machine picks up, many will often call the number back thinking that the connection was not made correctly because there just has to be some sort of answering service on the other end of the line.
The answering machine has become a vital part of the business world, allowing customers to leave messages for stores, clients to leave messages for their contacts at companies, and even co-workers to leave messages for each other during the day. Without the answering machine, business would become much slower because we would have to wait to actually catch someone at an exact moment they are available to talk. With the answering machine we can leave a message with a question, and the person can respond to the call with the answer through another message.
In addition to being useful during the business day, answering machines are very useful in personal and family lives as well. With many families having both adults working outside of the home and kids in extracurricular activities after school, there are many hours during the day where people just are not at home and available to take phone calls.
The answering machine has helped to alleviate the frustration of not being able to reach someone by being able to leave a message and expect a call in return when the person you are trying to reach is available to talk. People let their personalities show through their answering machine messages, and it was quite popular a few years ago to have funny messages that sounded like a person answering the phone and leaving a short pause, tricking the caller into speaking only to have the answering machine message continue on. There are still several online services that allow customers to download funny messages, and many people are creative on their own.
When it comes down to it, answering machines and voicemail are an essential part of life in the 21st century. With such busy lifestyles, we are becoming more reliant on
technology to communicate with each other and the answering machine was on the forefront of this movement.
