I really preferred the workflow(?) / pattern(?) that only existed for a few short years when pagers were common and cell phones weren’t. Someone would page you. You’d get it, decide if you needed to call them back, decide when to call them back, and where to do it.

You could do it from a payphone, you could wait until you got back home, or to your friend’s house, or to work, or whatever. If you wanted to stay out of touch, you could do it.

It’s the same reason that the children these days prefer to text rather than call. A text doesn’t have to be acknowledged instantly. You can think about your response if necessary. If you want privacy for your communication, you can arrange for that.

fun fact: pay phones in australia are now free, because it was costing Telstra more to go and extract the money than they were making from phone calls. So they’re all free now.