In the good old days, keeping in touch with friends worked like this: I would phone them or they would ring me. If they were out I would leave a message and they would call me, or I would ring back later and if I was out they would do the same. It was straightforward and in this manner we packed our social calendar.

Nowadays things are different. Keeping in touch with friends works like this: I ring them and leave a message but they don’t check their machines. I text and they reply immediately. They text me, but if I’m at home – with my mobile switched off – I don’t receive it, but they never call my landline, so making arrangements is problematic.

My friends are among the majority of people who no longer make telephone calls. According to new research, most Brits prefer to text one another rather than chat.

Despite there being 74 million mobile phones in use in the UK, 58 per cent of us make only one call a day from the device, with one in 10 making no calls at all and 44 per cent making less than one daily call from their landline.

Call me a Luddite, but I still prefer to use the landline. A conversation is so much more satisfying than a text. What I find amazing is that people use text to relay messages about the most serious of subjects. ‘Bin arrested – can u feed cat’, or ‘divorce thru 2day, in bits’ are typical. If I was in a tricky or upsetting situation I’d want to talk, not type.

I feel the same about e-mail and social networking websites, which are replacing traditional conversations.

I’ve been invited on to Facebook a few times and feel awful for ignoring the invitations, but I’d rather join a swingers’ club – at least you have face to face contact and the odd snippet of conversation.

My allergy to Facebook has probably cost me friends, who must assume I no longer like them.

It is clear why text is overtaking traditional calls – this weekend my daughter had 750 free texts, a gift from her mobile supplier for topping up. She’s a child for heaven’s sake, not a top socialite. Surely even Paris Hilton and Kate Moss together don’t get through that many texts in two days.

Every cloud has a silver lining though, at least we don’t have to listen to teenage chat for hours on end and avoid a whacking great phone bill.