I tried out ‘the 8-minute call’ and it wasn’t what I expected. But what (on earth) is the 8-minute call?
So far, no one that I have mentioned it to seems to have ever heard of it. It is a concept I first read about here in an article by Jen Glantz, but before that, I can’t say I knew what it was either. The 8-minute call requires you to call your friend (or whomever else in your life) for just eight minutes, hence the name!
There are different ways of doing these punchy, 1:1 calls but Glantz explained that when she tried them, ‘the calls worked best when we structured our time wisely’ to avoid the time running out too quickly for much (or any) news to be shared. She tried out a structure of:
2 minutes of talking about anything that came to mind
2 minutes for one person to share their life updates uninterrupted
2 minutes for the other person to do the same
2 minutes for follow-up questions and finishing the call
Now, I don’t know about you but on social media, I often feel bombarded by all the different
things we are told to try and do. With all the options out there of new things for us to buy, wear, eat, watch or experience, I don’t blame you if your first thought about the 8-minute call is, ‘what’s the point of doing that?’ or 'why bother counting the minutes?'
But many people are short of time and don’t catch up with the people they want to as often as they would like. For me, I can go long periods of time without seeing friends for lots of different reasons including that I struggle with fatigue (caused by chronic illnesses) and my university course can be really time-consuming. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t have time to see anyone and the months seem to fly by.
For some people like Glantz, busy schedules, being a parent or living in different cities to your friends may be obstacles to catching up. For other people, mental health struggles like anxiety or depression; neurodivergence such as autism or ADHD; financial difficulties; balancing multiple jobs, or transport issues may make catching up difficult.
Sometimes, we cancel plans due to not feeling up to talking for one or two hours (or longer) on the day, becoming ill and needing to rest, or being set a new deadline, not to mention the time and energy needed to plan and organise events.
I think that the appeal of the 8-minute call is partly because it is a fixed amount of time. It can easily be divided into sections (of two or four minutes) and there is an incentive to stick to the time limit because the agreement wasn’t to call for ‘like ten minutes’ or to ‘just have a quick catch up’ (which could be interpreted in different ways and easily be extended), but to call for exactly eight minutes... and then stop.
When I decided to try these out, I wasn’t sure who to ask first. I wondered if it would come across as weird and random (or even insulting if someone thought I could only bear to listen to them for such a short period of time)! I wondered if it would be awkward if I wanted to end the call after eight minutes but the other person kept talking. Or if it would just feel forced and strange.
In the second half of last year, I asked 11 people if they wanted to try an 8-minute call with me.
They were:
One family member (my uncle) – he said yes
Four fellow postgraduate students – three said yes
Three friends from my school days – two said yes
Three friends from my time as an undergraduate student – one said yes.
Overall, seven people agreed, one didn’t reply to that part of the message, one didn’t reply at all and two declined.
The first person I asked was my uncle. When I was younger, we used to meet up for hours but
these days, it is difficult for us both to fit in that sort of catch-up. What surprised me most was that eight minutes felt... long enough. We agreed that it actually felt like we caught up. We could have spent so much longer explaining the same things with more words, minutes and energy but really, we didn’t need it. To me, this felt really different to a call where the other person is multitasking, like walking somewhere or waiting for a bus, and a similar length of time in those circumstances seems rushed. Unlike those brief calls, there was less background noise (like cars or weather) and I enjoyed the uninterrupted element.
Now that I’ve tried these 8-minute calls with seven people, I have come up with some tips to help you if you want to try these out for yourself.
My Five Top Tips
1. Cast the net wide
As a student, you might be unable to see school friends due to distance (or the eye-watering price of the required train fare) and may have a part-time job or course deadlines which prevent you from meeting up with your peers as much as you’d like. What worked for me was to ask the people I wanted to try this with and to try not to overthink if we hadn’t spoken for a while, hadn’t known each other for long or if they’d think it was unusual. Asking a variety of people from different parts of my life helped me to find which people liked the thought of the idea, which enjoyed it and which I wanted to call again in this way.
2. Laugh
If it feels a bit odd and random, it’s probably because it is! Laughing when it’s time to move topic, end the call or talk in an unusually structured way has been part of the fun for me and helps to ease any awkwardness.
3. Make a couple of notes (but not too many)
I’ve tended to find that if I make too many notes about all of my news since I last spoke to the other person, I end up either talking too quickly or running over the time limit. When friends haven’t had any notes or thought about what they’ll say beforehand, it has sometimes been difficult for them to think and decide on the spot what to talk about. It can be useful just to choose that day or week’s updates or to pick one event and say, ‘I’ll tell you about this’.
4. It’s your call how you do it
For me, the introductory and ending sections haven’t really felt needed or have felt too long. I’ve found that skipping the small talk and getting straight into one person’s news works best and that it works well to have a short follow-up question section after each person’s news, rather than at the end of the call. (For example, using 2 minutes for person 1’s news, 2 minutes for follow-up questions and then 2 minutes for person 2’s news and 2 minutes for follow-up questions again).
5. Remember, it’s okay if this isn’t your thing
This idea may not float your boat, for example if you can’t or don’t like to talk on the phone. You might not like the sound of these 8-minute calls, but might like the wider idea about doing something for a shorter length of time, rather than not at all. For example, I read an article by Steven Morris about Swansea churchgoers praising the first ‘micro-service’ (a 15-minute church service) and thought it was a fantastic idea for busy people without much time to attend a full hour-long service. My final tip for you is to think about your interests or what you wish you could do more of and see if there is a way to do it for an amount of time that is
more realistic for you to fit into your routine more often.
Could this help with student loneliness?
While everyone is different and faces completely varied challenges in their lives, when I think of the things that students may struggle with, what springs to mind includes deadlines, stress,
being away from home and isolation. Whether you live alone or with family, partners, friends or strangers and whether you commute from home, live in halls or stay in other accommodation, university can be a time that brings a lot of change and can be lonely.
A press release published in 2023 was titled, ‘New government research shows ‘lonely’ seems to be the hardest word for students’. This included interesting statistics providing insights about university students’ loneliness. For example, Minister for Loneliness, Stuart Andrew said, ‘As these findings make clear, loneliness can affect anyone at any time. While freshers’ week is an exciting time for many, it can often be a daunting prospect for students. Moving away from home and away from friends and family can lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation, especially while trying to manage coursework, make new friends and often navigate a new city. There are small things everyone can do to help alleviate loneliness and open up the conversation. This includes reaching out to those that might be struggling and spending time volunteering, such as by offering a regular conversation to someone feeling
isolated. We want everyone to feel comfortable talking about loneliness and to help them find the right advice and support whenever they need it.’
While the 8-minute call won’t single-handedly solve student loneliness and there is much work to be done to help with this issue, I wonder if ideas like this may be useful for showing that there are different ways of socialising or taking a break which people (including other university students) may not have thought of. Lately, I seem to be seeing a lot of content from fitness influencers online talking about lacking the time to do a long work-out, with their general message being that when there is not time for a long work-out, it is better to squeeze in exercising for a short period of time than to avoid it completely. As a postgraduate student who is often short of time, I guess the 8-minute call concept is a bit like this for me. It enables me to connect with others more often and helps me to feel less lonely, which is why these calls seem to be becoming a vital aspect of my student life.
While some of my attempts have worked out better than others, overall these calls can help to encourage more frequent 1:1 communication, which may be useful for keeping in contact with people and feeling less lonely. As a postgrad student myself, I find them fun, useful and often amusing.
It is completely okay and normal to feel homesick or to struggle with your new surroundings.
Please seek support if you need it and know that you are not alone if you are feeling lonely or isolated. Although the 8-minute call can’t solve all loneliness and there are many factors at play, I encourage you to try out the idea, and let us here at the gazette know how you got on!
Image courtesy of The New York Times.
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