Verbal conversations: who needs them? Ireland is hanging up the telephone. We just can’t bear to hear each other’s grating voices anymore.

We would much rather save our larynxes for singing Get Lucky in the shower, or similar.

Figures published yesterday by communications watchdog ComReg show that total voice traffic has fallen 6.7 per cent over the past year.

The number of minutes we spend
on landlines fell 2 per cent in the
first quarter of 2013 compared to the "Christmas quarter" of 2012 and
plummeted more than 11 per cent year-on-year.

That doesn't mean we're all talking on our mobiles instead. Mobile minutes account for 65 per cent of the market,
but mobile voice traffic also fell 2 per cent in the quarter and is down 4 per cent annually.

Fixed-voice subscriptions
Despite our sudden lack of anything much to say (or greater skill at cutting to the chase), the number of fixed-voice subscriptions has actually been on the rise since 2011.

This is thanks largely to broadband companies' policy of bundling
products together. Eircom, the proud holder of 75 per cent of the fixed
voice market three years ago, now has a 55 per cent share, with UPC at 17 per
cent and Vodafone at 16 per cent respectively.

As for their customers, well, we may not be so keen to talk anymore, but we still spend more than 4 billion minutes on the phone each quarter.

ComReg doesn't measure Skype minutes, so there may yet be hope for the art of chat after all.