A company called MobilSphere has pounced on the fact that people often don't actually want to talk to each other. Matt Richtel of the NYT explains:

When Alexis Gorman, 26, wanted to tell a man she had been dating that the courtship was over, she felt sending a Dear John text message was too impersonal. But she worried that if she called the man, she would face an awkward conversation or a confrontation.

So she found a middle ground. She broke it off in a voice mail message, using new technology that allowed her to jump directly to the suitor's voice mail, without ever having to talk to the man - or risk his actually answering the phone.

The technology, called Slydial, lets callers dial a mobile phone but avoid an unwanted conversation - or unwanted intimacy - on the other end. The incoming call goes undetected by the recipient, who simply receives the traditional blinking light or ping that indicates that a voice mail message has been received.

How does MobilSphere, the company behind Slydial, do it? The CEO won't say (patent pending). You have to listen to a few