Last week, I watched friend struggle with her phone. She held it at arm’s length, squinting at the screen, then fumbled with the settings menu for what felt like minutes. Everyone pretended not to notice, but the generational divide was suddenly visible in that conference room.
The truth is, our phone habits reveal our age perhaps more accurately than almost anything else we do. I’ve noticed patterns that consistently give away when someone crossed that 50-year threshold, regardless of how young they feel or look.
These aren’t necessarily bad habits. They’re simply the accumulation of preferences, comfort zones, and practical adjustments we make as our relationship with technology evolves. But understanding them matters, especially if you’re trying to maintain professional relevance or simply want to be more aware of the signals you’re sending.
1. You hold your phone at arm’s length to read
This is the most obvious tell, and nearly impossible to hide. The moment someone extends their arm fully to read a text message, their age bracket becomes clear. It’s not vanity preventing people from getting reading glasses; it’s often the inconvenience of constantly switching between distance and reading vision.
I’ve watched executives do this dance countless times. They’ll receive a message, extend their arm, tilt their head back slightly, and squint. Some have mastered the subtle art of casually placing their phone on the table and leaning back to create distance. But the gesture itself is unmistakable.
The practical reality is that by 50, most of us need help with close-up vision. Younger colleagues zoom through texts at close range while we’re conducting this arm-extension ballet.
2. You type with your index finger
Watch anyone over 50 type a message, and you’ll likely see the careful, deliberate tap of a single index finger. Sometimes it’s both index fingers in an alternating rhythm, but rarely the fluid thumb-typing that younger generations have mastered.
This isn’t about capability; it’s about learned behavior. Those of us who spent decades typing on keyboards approach phone screens like miniature keyboards. We aim, we tap, we verify. Each letter is a conscious decision rather than muscle memory.
The speed difference is dramatic. While someone under 30 fires off a paragraph in seconds using both thumbs, we’re still carefully constructing our first sentence. In meetings, I’ve noticed younger colleagues discretely answering texts while maintaining eye contact. Meanwhile, those of us over 50 need to fully disengage from conversation to compose even a brief response.
3. You call instead of texting for anything important
When something actually matters, my generation picks up the phone and calls. This drives younger colleagues crazy, but for us, important conversations require vocal nuance, immediate clarification, and the efficiency of real-time dialogue.
If I need to discuss a contract issue, resolve a misunderstanding, or convey anything with emotional weight, I’m calling. Text feels inadequate for complexity. How do you negotiate via text? How do you read between the lines when there’s no tone of voice?
This habit reveals a fundamental difference in communication philosophy. We see phone calls as more efficient for anything beyond simple logistics. Younger generations see them as intrusive interruptions that could have been handled asynchronously. Both views have merit, but the preference itself is a clear age marker.
4. You leave detailed voicemails
Related to calling is our tendency to leave actual voicemail messages. Not just “Call me back” but full explanations of why we called, what we need, and when we’re available for a return call.
I once left what I considered a concise voicemail for a younger associate. Later, she mentioned she’d never actually listened to it, just saw that I called and texted to ask what I needed. The idea of checking voicemail was foreign to her daily routine.
For those of us over 50, voicemail serves a purpose: it provides context, saves time on callbacks, and creates a record of communication. But to anyone under 35, voicemail is essentially dead technology, something to be cleared out periodically like spam email.
5. Your phone volume is always too loud or muted
There’s rarely a middle ground with our generation’s phone volume settings. Either every notification echoes through the room, or we miss calls because everything is silenced and we forgot to turn it back on.
The loud phone phenomenon happens because we genuinely don’t hear the subtle notification sounds that younger ears catch easily. So we crank up the volume, not realizing our text tone is now audible three rooms away.
Conversely, after being embarrassed by a loud ring during an important moment, we mute everything and then wonder why we missed six calls. The constant volume adjustment dance is something younger users rarely need to perform.
6. You close apps thinking it saves battery
This habit is deeply ingrained in those of us who remember when leaving programs open genuinely slowed down computers. We diligently swipe up to close every app, convinced we’re preserving battery life and phone performance.
The irony is that constantly closing and reopening apps actually uses more battery than leaving them suspended. But try explaining this to someone who spent the 1990s frantically closing programs to free up RAM. The mental model is too deeply embedded.
I catch myself doing this constantly, methodically closing apps I’m not using, feeling virtuous about my digital housekeeping. Meanwhile, younger users have 47 apps open and their phones work just fine.
7. You use proper punctuation and grammar in texts
Every text message I send could be submitted as a business letter. Complete sentences, proper capitalization, punctuation marks where they belong. To us, this is simply correct writing. To younger generations, it reads as formal, cold, or even passive-aggressive.
The period at the end of a text, which to me signals the end of a sentence, apparently conveys anger or finality to anyone under 35. I learned this after a younger colleague asked if I was upset with her. The evidence? I’d ended my text with a period.
This extends to our use of “Dear” in emails, our tendency to sign texts with our names, and our discomfort with the casual grammar that dominates digital communication. We’re still writing letters; everyone else is having conversations.
8. You print things out to read them properly
Despite having a perfectly functional phone screen, those of us over 50 often print important documents, articles, or even long emails to read them “properly.” There’s something about paper that feels more substantial, easier to focus on, better for comprehension.
I keep physical notebooks for meeting notes, preferring the tactile experience of writing to typing on a phone. The margins of printed documents are where I do my real thinking, with arrows, annotations, and questions that would be cumbersome to add digitally.
This isn’t technological incompetence; it’s preference born from decades of paper-based work. We trust physical documents in a way we don’t quite trust digital ones. If it really matters, we print it out.
Closing thoughts
These habits aren’t flaws to be corrected or signs of technological incompetence. They’re adaptations that make sense given our generation’s relationship with technology and communication. We learned different protocols in different times, and those patterns persist even as the tools change.
What matters isn’t eliminating these tells but being aware of them. In professional settings, understanding how our phone habits read to others helps us navigate generational dynamics more effectively. Sometimes it’s worth adapting; sometimes it’s perfectly fine to own these preferences.
The next time you catch yourself extending your arm to read a text or carefully typing with one finger, remember that these habits tell a story of adaptation, of bridging analog and digital worlds. There’s no shame in that. But there is value in understanding the signals we send, intentionally or not, every time we pick up our phones.
