
I hate telephones - jamesfisher
https://jameshfisher.com/2017/11/08/i-hate-telephones
======
kibwen
I receive about 20 spam calls per day. In contrast, I receive about 0.2
legitimate calls per day.

Google itself suspects that these are spam calls, because it pops up a bright
red "SUSPECTED SPAM CALLER" warning when the phone begins ringing. And yet, I
have found no option to have the phone automatically decline the call. There's
not even an option to silence the ringer for any call not from my contacts; I
actually had to disable my ringer for _all_ callers, by default, and then
manually, one at a time, set a custom ringtone for each of my contacts.

This is completely absurd. Why is it so hard to configure my phone to only
allow my friends to interrupt me at any moment of the day, rather than any
rando? Turns out, I might also hate telephones.

~~~
kemayo
Strangely enough, given Android's comparatively-customizable nature, I think
this is an area where iOS does it better? (Others might correct me.)

iOS 10 added "call blocking" as an app-type, which lets you choose apps which
can filter phone calls for you. They can flag calls as possible-spam, or
completely block them. (See [1] for Hiya's options screen, as an example.)

An "only ring for my friends" feature is sort of possible. You can keep your
phone in "do not disturb" mode, and add people who you want to be able to call
you to your "VIPs" list to let them through. That's a fair bit of manual
management, though, which is a pain.

I don't _think_ it's possible to make a call-blocker app which functions as a
whitelist, sadly, because I think this is like their browser content blockers
and operates as the app providing a list of blocked numbers for privacy
reasons.

[1]: [https://imgur.com/a/Yftxy](https://imgur.com/a/Yftxy)

~~~
vilmosi
Android can absolutely do this. Either via settings or replacing the default
calling app.

~~~
jimmyswimmy
Can't. You can block individual numbers, but there is no tool in the base
Android to block all unknowns. Fortunately there are plenty of apps which will
do exactly that - but I'm confused as to why I need to install an app to do
something so simple.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Because if any core OS had to contain every feature which is deemed "simple"
then that OS will become bloated and complex.

------
_nalply
Me, too.

I don't hear, so I don't phone. However some business is almost impossible to
conduct without phoning. AWS requires identification by phone. Customs tried
to call me to ask me something about my bike I sent home from a holiday
abroad. Credit cards are only unblocked by a phone call. And so on. (And phone
relays are only a partial solution because some commpanies deem them insecure
- I have currently a credit card I was not able to unblock, I will send them a
cancellation notice.)

So, in other words, it's not hatred or perhaps an anxiety disorder, but a real
discrimination of a disability, which leads me to agree with Mr Fisher.

~~~
fivre
Interesting. You don't use TTY devices then? I wouldn't be entirely surprised
if those became less prevalent as telephone services decline in popularity,
but I'd figured most of the deaf community used them still.

~~~
_nalply
I don't understand this question. You mean, are AWS, the credit card
institution and the customs also using TTY devices? Sorry, no.

And since texting (mobile short message service) TTY slowly went out of use,
at least here in Switzerland. I still own a TTY device, however I haven't used
it for more than ten years.

An interesting technical tidbit here: My TTY is using V.21, however with only
one channel and with 110 baud. I researched the TTY with recording on a sound
card and analysing the tones. Bit 0 is represented by a sinus wave of 1180Hz,
1 by 980Hz with a duration of 9.1ms each. A byte was transferred with 10 bits
(total duration 91ms), 1 bit was a stop bit and the other one a parity bit (I
am not sure, I forgot some details). Additionally there was a carrier tone at
1080Hz which was held for about 3 seconds after the last byte has been sent.

This means it was not possible that both parties simultaneously send. We had a
convention that the other party is allowed to answer when we type two
asterisks.

A phone relay service in Switzerland still continues to use this convention in
their JavaScript application. It is a simulation of the old TTY device they
sold to people. I think they had to use websockets because every letter is
sent to the other party right away.

------
xefer
My changed relationship with the telephone became weirdly apparent when I
watched the original WarGames movie recently.

There's a scene where David (Matthew Broderick) is alone with McKittrick
(Dabney Coleman) in his office being interrogated separated by an office desk.
While they're sitting there the telephone on McKittrick's desk starts ringing,
which he silently ignores keeping his eyes glued on David, who grows
increasingly uncomfortable as the phone keeps ringing and going unanswered.

I recall when that movie first came out there was a terrible tension in the
air because nobody ignored a phone back then. Leaving it to just ring away
felt wrong and unacceptable. Now whenever a phone rings I mostly just go "ugh"
and feel no obligation to get to it at all.

As I watched that scene again I felt nothing of that original tension. I
wonder how that scene would effect younger people today watching it for the
first time?

~~~
DanBC
The 5:4 timing of the ring in the UK was designed to create tension and a
sense of urgency to make people answer it quicker.

~~~
acobster
5:4 as in the _time signature_? Very cool, I had no idea (not from UK).

------
yoodenvranx
> If I were rich, I would have a permanent secretary.

If I ever play and win the lottery this is the one thing I would spent big
money on. No expensive cars, no expensive wine, just a person which takes care
of everything.

Need a new insurance for the car? Tell the secretary to do it. Car is broken?
Tell the secretary to take care of it. Need a hotel? Tell the personal
secretary to book one. Phone broken? Just send an email "Please order me a
Samsung S8" and it will magically appear the next day. Don't like it? Just
tell them to send it back.

This would solve 95% of my daily struggles and it would improve the quality of
my life way more than any expensive yacht or car could ever do.

In fact if you have a group of half a dozen people who each pay a few hundred
$ a month you could almost employ one person who takes care of such stuff even
as a not-so-rich person.

~~~
jzwinck
> if you have a group of half a dozen people who each pay a few hundred $ a
> month you could almost employ one person who takes care of such stuff

You could move to Singapore, where a full-time (24x6) "domestic helper" costs
about 400 USD per month. They'll cook meals for you, help care for your kids,
buy groceries, do laundry, etc. Some people I know say they'd never move back
to the US because of this.

For comparison, that cost is roughly 15-20% of typical rent.

~~~
sho
The number of people I know who would trust their domestic helper to do the
kind of things the OP mentions is pretty low. They're maids, not PAs, and they
are not generally here because of their outstanding educational attainment and
bright career prospects back home. Most of them can hardly speak English.

On the other hand, I've known a few young people in Indonesia and the like who
really would make excellent PAs of the kind the OP desires, and their salaries
are not much more. We're talking university graduate, excellent English and
phone manners, and the kind of proactive dedication to a task that one greatly
desires in an employee - $500/m or less. I agree, there could be a market.

------
Sidnicious
After reading this, I just started experimentally sending all calls to
voicemail. Here's how I set it up; it should work with GSM phone carriers:

\- Dial the below number. It'll show a bunch of information, including your
voicemail number. Remember/copy the number.

    
    
        *#67#
    

\- Create a new contact. I put "Phone Off" in the company name field. Use the
below number as its phone number, replacing the "X"s with the number from the
first step, including country code. Calling this contact will tell the network
to forward all calls to voicemail without the phone ringing.

    
    
        *21*+XXXXXXXXXXX#
    

\- Create another new contact. I put "Phone On" in the company name field.
Enter the phone number below. Calling it will cancel call forwarding.

    
    
        ##21#
    

I added both of these contacts to my favorites and can tap them to
enable/disable calls. Right now, I'm only planning to turn off forwarding when
I'm actively expecting a call. It turns out that my phone puts an indicator in
the status bar when forwarding is turned on, which is cool. Let's see how it
goes.

~~~
matthberg
Awesome, and I bet with pinning of contacts to home screen this could easily
be used without ever touching the phone app. Also would be cool to use tasker
to increase integration with multiple triggers or timeouts.

------
anotherevan
I’m probably a bit the other way in that I get frustrated with text messages
going back and forth and back and forth when a one minute phone call will sort
everything out far more efficiently. Probably also has something to do with
hating tapping away at tiny virtual keyboard on the phone, too.

My teenage daughter seems very reluctant to make a phone call. Watching her
try and organise something with her friends drives me a bit spare as it
involves hours of waiting for poorly worded, ambiguous messages on Facebook or
texts, with me suggesting several times, “Why don’t you just call them, and
get it all figured out right now?”

On the other hand, watching my Dad buy a new mobile phone is really fun. The
salesperson is trying to up-sell him on all the features of a phone, “You have
unlimited texts, and it has an app to make you taller, and…” and my Dad just
keeps asking, “Yeah, but can it make phone calls?”

I guess I fall somewhere in between.

I do find, when there is a scene in a TV show or movie where someone’s phone
keeps ringing incessantly and they keep cancelling it while trying to have the
deep and meaningful conversation with someone wanting to yell, “Don’t you know
how to turn your phone off?!”

I do hate voicemail. Not so much leaving them, but having to check them.
Probably because I hate any “interactive” system that involves sentences like,
“To hear a list of all the ways technology has improved your life, please
press one…”

Unsolicited calls to mobiles is not a big thing in Australia (yet) so I’m
lucky there.

On the home line, I have an old analogue modem to pick up caller ID
information for incoming phone calls using NCID[1].

When a call comes in:

* Automatically pauses the music player on my PC.

* Looks up the number in my address book, and displays the information on my screen. Also sends to the two Kodi/OSMC servers, for people watching TV.

This assumes it is not on my block-list. If it is on my block-list of known
scammer and telemarketer numbers then it as automatically answered with a
recording of the “This number has been disconnected…” message to try and trick
them.

[1] [http://ncid.sourceforge.net/](http://ncid.sourceforge.net/)

~~~
SerLava
> “Why don’t you just call them, and get it all figured out right now?”

Because it's rude. It has always been rude, but now with the phone in your
pocket it's that much worse. She doesn't know what her friend isn't doing at
the moment, and shouldn't impose.

The featured article gives a better impression of this than I can... but I'll
add that the tragedy of the commons is a factor.

You can't just show up from outer space and scream out of someone's pocket
whenever you want. This will hopefully be a fleeting technological phenomenon.

~~~
jessriedel
Even if you subscribed to this bizarre principle that it's rude to call
someone unannounced, you could always just ask by text.

~~~
nicky0
I find the principle that it's OK to call people at any time very bizarre.

~~~
djhworld
I think it depends when you were born.

In the 70s/80s/90s it was very common to get phone calls (on landline phones)
at all times of the day from family members or friends.

I remember being on the phone to friends from school for hours in the evening,
I don't even recall the subject matter of the conversations but it's just what
you did.

Then as more and more people got on the internet, using other communication
mediums like IM, IRC email etc became more and more common, and nowadays I'd
find it very unusual for someone to call me out of the blue.

~~~
SerLava
I agree- I didn't mind getting calls when it was the only way to communicate
long distance. It was still inconvenient but better than nothing.

------
Al-Khwarizmi
I used to had a phone phobia just as bad as described by the author, including
spending nontrivial amounts of time going to places to ask a brief question to
avoid a short phone call, etc.

My phobia was cured when I got a girlfriend who liked talking on the phone,
plus we were away from each other most of the week so it was a good idea to do
so. So if talking on the phone gives you anxiety and you would rather not have
it, talking to a loved one might be good therapy.

However, I still hate phones (as in phone calls, not smartphones and their
wondrous apps) for everything but personal communication with close friends or
relatives. I hate how phones bluntly and suddenly interrupt anything you're
doing, how you don't necessarily know who is calling, how you don't see the
other person's face and how they require to answer now.

When I was younger I seemed to be in a minority for hating phones, but we seem
to grow more and more. I look forward to a world where we can conduct any
business by email, text messages or, in the minority of cases where it's
really needed, previously agreed Skype calls.

------
b0rsuk
'''Text and email are polite invitations to a conversation. They happen at the
speed and leisure of both the sender and the receiver. In stark contrast, when
you get a phone call, it’s almost always a convenient time for the caller and
a bad time for the recipient, who I refer to as the “victim” because I insist
on accuracy. My philosophy is that every phone conversation has a loser.'''

\-- Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert comic strip
[http://blog.dilbert.com/2010/09/03/phone/](http://blog.dilbert.com/2010/09/03/phone/)

------
projektir
I recently had to spend a lot of time on the phone to set something important
up. It was a very frustrating experience.

I would call them, and be met with a robocall. The robocall would not really
have a section for what I actually needed to do, so I would stumble around and
often end up at the wrong person. Often we were both confused and it wasn't
clear what was going on.

Every time I called, it's a different person. I have to tell them my contact
information and details every time. There's no continuity from previous
discussions.

Sometimes, the phone would cut out, for a reason I still haven't figured out.
Often in the middle of me talking to someone, and since there's no continuity,
all that time is now lost.

I had different people tell me different things at the same phone number.

I end up with no record of my conversations, so it's hard to go back later and
say: "Hey, they told me to do X, but it didn't work".

Holds, holds, holds. When I finally did a phone call that fixed everything, I
spent about an _hour_ and I was bounced between 5 different departments,
including one case of being bounced in a cycle. Overall, I had to call this
company about 5 times.

I don't hate phones per se, I like talking to people on the phone if it's a
productive conversation for both of us. But I absolutely hate the idea of
figuring out something important or receiving a service via a phone.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
By far the worst phone call experience I've ever had was with Washington
Health Plan Finder. You can still experience it for yourself by making a call
now. It's a never-ending loop of holding followed by mind-numbing options and
random hangups. If you get lucky to speak with a real person, the level of
incompetence will drive you to the brink of insanity. I swear, they just let
random people walk in from the street to take calls because those people have
zero idea what they are talking about. My experience ended in me cancelling
all of our insurance policies with Kaiser because I was stuck in a
beaurocratic nightmare that had me transferring from one institution to the
other in a never-ending loop. Somehow NOBODY was able to help me. I was so fed
up with this situation that I moved countries half way around the world.

~~~
projektir
Oh, what a coincidence, these are the same institutions I had these problems
with!

> Somehow NOBODY was able to help me. I was so fed up with this situation that
> I moved countries half way around the world.

It's funny how much I can relate to this. I did eventually figure it out but
it very much made me want to move somewhere else.

------
throw401
I hate telephones too, and I DON'T have an anxiety disorder please!!!

I'm just not the guy always ready for a call. I rarely pick up the phone or
open the door for a unknown call, and yes it can create stress. Quite often I
am very focussed and balanced, one call can ruin that state. If you cannot
find yourself in this, please don't create a disease out of it.

~~~
strathmeyer
Yes, things that cause you stress can be neurosis and psychoses. If it ruins
your focus it is affecting your life and can be classified as a disorder.

~~~
jimbokun
How can a phone ringing _not_ ruin your focus? Maybe you never actually focus
on anything, and so do not understand the phenomenon?

~~~
saltcured
Some of us have a different problem, which is that our focus can endanger us
or ruin our marriages. For us, it is easy to tune out things going on around
us like phone calls, houses burning down, or our spouse repeating the same
question with escalating irritation...

------
superflyguy
"Last year, I received a series of 3am calls. At the dial tone, which is set
to a horrifically unadjustable volume, I was woken from deep sleep to deep
panic. "

That would be the ringtone. ( I suppose there are a large number of people who
have never heard a dial tone.)

~~~
mikestew
Except that checking for a dial tone is mentioned later, so I’m going to go
with ESL rather than ignorance of what a dial tone is.

~~~
skosch
His name is Jim Fisher, and he's from the UK. I do consider it likely he grew
up speaking English.

~~~
mikestew
Hmm, somehow missed that. I guess, then, that the anxiety disorder he
describes affects written communication, too.

------
stretchwithme
I'd love it if my cell phone auto-screened calls from numbers not in my
address book. Give them a special message that explains the only way they'll
get through is to leave a message.

Or that they can register their number in a public registry that fully
explains who they are and then I can decide whether to take calls from that
number.

~~~
Spearchucker
I never answer calls, ever. My voicemail suggests sending me an email. If the
caller doesn't, it's like it never happened. The only reason I even have a SIM
card is for data/tethering.

~~~
andai
When I found out that I could take the "home internet via mobile network" SIM
card and put it in my phone, I was so happy.

"But you won't be able to receive calls!", the salesperson objected.

 _" Perfect."_

------
lifeformed
Getting a phone call always feels so rude. It's like it's saying, "Whatever
you are doing, stop RIGHT NOW and listen to me. NOW! NOW! I'm giving you TEN
SECONDS! LISTEN TO ME."

~~~
qznc
This! Phone calls are most impolite way to begin communication in my opinion.
I'm probably not alone, because a lot of my acquaintances send a chat message
first, like "hi, can I call you right now?".

It can also lead to priority inversion. You handle the caller first despite
having a higher priority (like a person next to you). Phone calls feel more
urgent. Some people exploit this (e.g. salesmen).

(I might have phone anxiety, but weaker than in the article, and this is just
me rationalizing it?)

A weaker variant of this are WhatsApp voice messages. You can delay listening
to them, but you cannot skim to the relevant parts and must listen to the
drivel before. "Hi ... uh ... sorry for this voice message ... uh ... but I'm
too busy to type right know so I thought I'd rather talk ..." Am I the only
one who finds this impolite and rude? Obviously this person does not value my
time because I have to invest the time to listen. A text message would take a
fraction of the time to read. Especially, because people would leave out the
drivel. The waste of time multiplies if such voice messages go to group chats.

~~~
nicky0
Turn off vibrations, disable voicemail and set your phone to silent. That way
you only get calls when you are looking at your phone. Missed calls go to your
call register and you can call them back at a convenient time to your.

~~~
qznc
Yes, I often do this. Call register is missing the subject and even the name
for unknown numbers.

------
xg15
> _I hate telephones._

> _The problem is the medium. The problem is synchronous communication. The
> problem is the telephone. I hate telephones._

> _I’m told that, in 1993, 2.5 million people in the UK had “telephone
> phobia”. That’s over 4%, similar to rates of arachnophobia. This is not
> unusual, and I’d bet rates are higher now. Everyone hates telephones._

> ... _Asynchronous textual communication is how everyone communicates
> remotely now. It’s here to stay. Killing the telephone is a big market._

 _I_ don't hate telephones. I do however hate the implied (and quite arrogant)
call to action in that post "I hate telephones and like chat, so we all should
get rid of them and exclusively communicate via chat"

~~~
djhworld
I like communicating with companies via live chat. You can do it discreetly
without bothering people around you (e.g. in an office) and usually your
situation can be expressed better in text, and you have a transcription at the
end to keep to.

For example a few weeks ago I was having problems with my phone, so I
contacted OnePlus via their chat, and the lady on the other end arranged the
RMA process quickly.

Much quicker than having to enunciate my email address, home address etc over
the phone, plus I had a transcription that I could refer to afterwards in
follow up emails.

~~~
astura
Live Chat is also nice because it doesn't distract me the same a phone
conversation does. I'll live chat during the times I'm doing some mindless
task (like running scripts).

------
unsignedint
I have a virtual secretary that came with the phone service. It called voice
mail. I don't take unknown calls these days unless I expect them. If they are
serious talking to me, they will leave a message. I will simply call them back
as needed.

Occasions I took unknown calls were all scams, and these days, it just won't
worth the hassle of dealing with them.

What frustrate me the most is when I call them back, it's not a direct line,
and/or when the person doesn't answer yet their voice mail is not activated so
I can't leave a message.

~~~
wildrhythms
I do the same; If someone wants to talk on the phone they'll need to text or
email beforehand and we'll both agree on a time. My voicemails are
automatically transcribed.

Why do companies expect a direct line to me, but no direct line back to them?
Why is this a one way street? This is easily solved by letting customers
arrange an appointment to call or be called.

------
__s
Me too. No land line, no mobile. I don't have an anxiety response as detailed
here so much as a properly calibrated respect for my own uninterrupted time.
Job wants me to get a mobile phone but we'll see. Email makes sense: it's a
pull interface. If you want a push interface to communicate with me you'll
have to ring my door bell

I recently made the mistake of helping carry the load at work by answering the
phone there. It's alright, mostly scripted, & my lack of customer friendliness
(Surprising the amount of silence yes/no answers invoke) will hopefully
transition us away from having a developer handling support calls soon

~~~
ghaff
You do realize that you likely wouldn't have a job without those annoying
customers who are calling for support?

~~~
Dylan16807
And they wouldn't have a job if nobody did the accounting, and they wouldn't
have a job if nobody did the building maintenance, and they wouldn't have a
job if nobody designed marketing material...

A lot of jobs are important. That doesn't imply that everyone should want to
do every job.

Customer support is just one job among many. And disliking customer support
isn't disliking customers.

------
ghaff
I'm about to ditch my landline and one of the main reasons (in addition to not
using it much) is that legitimate calls are far outnumbered by junk calls. I
don't answer numbers I don't recognize but it's still a distraction.

There seems to be some principle in play where the misuse of a communications
channel rises to the point where it's annoying but not quite unusable. If I
got 20 junk calls a day, I'd _have_ to turn my phone off. As it is, it's at
nuisance level but still usable.

~~~
hnarn
Out of curiousity, when were you born? I was born in the 80's, and among my
friends literally noone has a landline, not even the older ones. There's
simply no argument for it. I'm in northern Europe by the way.

~~~
brightsize
There IS an argument for it. Around a year ago we had a freak windstorm here.
It was an amazing experience - took down trees and tore apart roofs all over.
I'd never seen houses crushed by trees before. The power was out for days in
some places, including mine. My phone battery died after a day, ditto the
laptop's battery. My landline continued to function throughout.

As I recall the service was also extremely inexpensive as part of a DSL
bundle. It _is_ true that the landline was a powerful spam magnet, much more
so than my cell.

~~~
Feniks
Natural disasters that cut off power for more than a few hours are unlikely in
Northern Europe. Cell towers have their own emergency power supply to deal
with the once in a decade brown out.

If the power is off for days it means the Apocalypse or WW3 has happened.

~~~
nicky0
Just out of curiosity how do you define Northern Europe? It's a term I'm
seeing more lately but I don't know what it really means.

~~~
hnarn
Northern Europe refers geographically to the northern part of Europe, or in a
narrower sense, to the cultural grouping of the Nordic countries, Baltic
countries, and sometimes also the British Isles. (Wikipedia)

~~~
nicky0
Thank you, however I wasn't looking for the Wikipedia definition. I could have
easily looked that up myself. I wanted to know what the poster personally
meant by the term.

------
blfr
Rarely can I get the same level of service out of companies over text that I
can easily over the phone. Talking to a human over the phone is by far the
most customer friendly medium of communication. I can do it without physically
going anywhere, yet I get almost all the benefits of visiting the business.

Online chats on websites are usually undermanned and overall useless. On the
phone I am sure I have at least one person's attention. The rep isn't trying
to talk to five people at the same time, we can both focus on the issue, the
back and forth is almost instantaneous, and we can come to some conclusion at
the end.

~~~
jimbokun
Hahaha, like "using the phone" means "talking to a human", that's a good one.

Using the phone means

1\. Listening to a long list of automated selections, none of which are ever
useful (pretty much information more easily available over the Internet). 2\.
Getting placed on hold for tens of minutes or an hour or more. 3\. Talking to
someone who will ignore your question and ask if you have tried some obvious
or irrelevant option. 4\. Forwarded to someone else who _might_ be able to
help you with your problem. 5\. Maybe getting cut off, needing to start the
entire process over again from the beginning.

In short, without massive increases in staffing and training, using the phone
for customer support is almost always worse than an equivalent text, web, or
email based solution.

The article went into even more detail about these shortcomings than I did, by
the way.

~~~
blfr
I have no trouble getting to a human in a reasonable time (under 10 minutes)
as a regular customer for services like cable/Internet, mobile, building
maintenance. And for business services I usually have a real person's card and
a direct phone number to them.

~~~
msangi
I would find "under 10 minutes" to be a quite annoying amount of time,
especially if I'm paying for them the premium rate that some customer services
have.

~~~
simonbarker87
I easily waste 10 minutes per online support chat waiting for the agent to
deal with the 4 other cases they are on, fixing my typos because typing is
worse than speaking and dealing with the context switching that comes from
doing other stuff whilst waiting for them to respond.

Much better to start the call, get through the menu and then put my phone on
the desk either on speaker or with a hands free set and doing something else
whilst waiting for them, once I get the person on the phone I can then focus
on the call and not other things.

------
microcolonel
I love telephones, they're useful for having efficient and comfortable
synchronous conversations. I don't think the level of hatred expressed here is
warranted. Yeah, it's annoying when occasionally you receive a phone call at
an unwanted hour, but sometimes it's crucial for people to get in contact with
you.

I have a publicly listed number (in addition to a private one), and I have not
received a spam call this year even once. When people call my phone, it is
warranted.

Telephones remain the best way to contact emergency services, or settle things
which you have no option to settle in person.

~~~
marssaxman
Why do you want to have synchronous remote conversations?

~~~
pfarnsworth
The same reason why _sometimes_ meetings are actually important and faster to
come to a decisions than email or chat. When you have all the stakeholders in
front of each other, either physically or virtually, information is
disseminated and decisions come together much quicker.

~~~
microcolonel
Indeed, the mythical "good meeting". I swear I've seen it firsthand, but
nobody believes me.

~~~
astura
The only times we've ever had meetings at work they've been good ones! We only
have a few a year.

------
ipsin
While I don't have a phone phobia, I do hate how much time it takes to get a
simple piece of information.

A recent example: I wanted to book a suite at a hotel. The hotel is not tall,
and it overlooks a very noisy bar on one side. Is it possible to get a suite
on the other side? Where will I be located, anyway?

This information is not online. Instead I have to engage in a phone call.
Spend some time on hold. Bounce between people who work in the hotel and a
reservations desk a couple of time. Eventually I get the answer, and it's
exactly what I want.

But. I'm bothered in two directions. One, that the information is not at my
fingertips.

The other, that I find it irritating to have that actual conversation to get
the information I want. I'd like to have a better handle on this mental
impatience.

~~~
danieltillett
I think you might find this lack of information is a feature not a bug.

~~~
mwcampbell
What do you mean? A feature for whom? The customer, or the company trying to
sell the service?

~~~
danieltillett
The hotel.

------
DoubleGlazing
I get this totally. I don't like calling, not because of any anxiety, but
because I don't know what awaits me. When I call a company I feel like
although I am initiating the contact, they will take control of the call.

And as for receiving I remember someone mentioning that a ringing phone is
essentially someone saying "Speak to me now, speak to me now, speak to me
now". It is an inherently rude form of communication because it demands
instant attention with no regard to what you may be doing.

I just don't answer calls these days unless they are from family. I was
getting a lot of sales calls from my electricity provider who also wanted to
sell me gas. We don't have gas at our home, but they wouldn't log that fact.
So I blocked their number.

Last week I got an email from them saying that they had been trying to call me
for some time to let me know about an amazing offer, and that they think I may
have accidentally blocked their number.

Of course, they couldn't just put the details of the offer in the email. I had
to call them.

------
combatentropy
This article is hilarious and well written. Despite it being about suffering a
little too much pain over phone calls, I think it's also meant to be funny.
Take for example his story about being too nervous to call his own doctor and
eventually getting just better on his own, and therefore how he wonders if
telephones are a tool used by the national health service to cut costs.

I wonder how he would have survived in the days of only telephones and no text
messages, or in the days of no telephones and only unexpected raps at the
door.

His indictment of telephone customer service is thorough. Even people who
don't normally dread phone calls probably dread trying to call a company.

~~~
hrktb
I can’t speak for the author, but people going incredible length to avoid
phone calls is a real thing.

What surprises me is the author not having the online credentials handy. I
also hate phone calls with a passion, and the first thing I look for in a bank
is the online interface and how good their app is maintained.

I had to give up on well regarded local banks because of how they focus on
“human touch” and had sub-par online tools.

Same with doctors, it took a lot of time to find a range of doctors that had
online reservation systems but that’s definitely doable in europe at least.

I survived the years where phoning people was the only way, but even then I
tried to have alternatives (actually going to the company’s office was usually
a lot better for instance).

Basically I think telephone was a mistake, and wish it a painful and quick
death so we forget about it yesterday.

------
mrmondo
Not alone here, I have my work phone unplugged or permanently on do not
disturb (straight to voicemail which gets converted into text in an email),
likewise on my cell phone I reject almost all calls and an automatic reply via
text saying “I’m sorry, I’m not able to take your call or you’re calling for
an unknown number, please email or iMessage me instead”, if the number calling
is a land line my carrier converts this to a robo-voice and calls them back to
say this, if the number is blocked - tough luck.

Not only are 99% of phone calls a waste of time, you’re inefficient with no
written log of the conversation (not even for security but also to improve
workflow and prioritisation / memory recall), furthermore the impact of the
context shifting from what I’m currently working on / deep in thought over to
a jarring phone conversation at the time that suits the caller - is incredibly
disruptive.

------
georgespencer
Same for doorbell. I flat out won't answer the front door if someone rings it
and I'm not expecting anyone.

~~~
brightsize
Same here. Anyone at my door who I don't expect is either proselytizing for
their religion (looking at you Mormons and JWs), begging for money, or trying
to sell me something.

~~~
pm215
I think the most common unexpected caller for me these days is a delivery
person asking me to take in a parcel for some neighbour who isn't in...

------
dataker
It's not just customers.

I manage teams of support engineers/agents.

They will do anything to avoid a phone call.

Indeed, almost all the time, phone calls lead nowhere, only to emotional
distress.

If you have a really serious issue, you need to escalate to an actual
software/platform engineer, and that's something that takes hours, if not
days.

~~~
fivre
Phone calls in isolation are terrible. I've worked as support for both older
and newer service providers. For the older provider, calls reached support
agents with all the customer's information readily available, and support
agents had easy means to invite customers to screen sharing sessions, so they
could see what we were looking at and we could discuss it together.

That said, some customers weren't able to share screens (typically because
they were working with classified systems), so I acquired the fairly uncommon
skill of directing people through a Unix system by speaking commands letter by
letter in the NATO phonetic alphabet while navigating through my own example
system. That was slow, but it worked, and was necessary given the
restrictions.

With my newer service provider, phone support is seen as some sort of extra
option in case of emergencies, and is treated more or less as a pager system.
Calls come in with no context, we do not have screen sharing, and the
experience is generally terrible for both the customer and support agent.

No means of support is inherently bad, but all means of contacting support
have their limitations. Good support departments recognize those limitations
and address them, so that all avenues of support are effective for either
addressing an issue or communicating why it must be handled via another
channel if it's not something that can be resolved at the point of contact.

------
thomk
My favorite is this call from an unknown caller.

/ring

Me: Hello.

Caller: Hello, is this <my name>

Me: Who is this?

Caller: IS THIS <my name>?

Me: Who is this?

Caller: Sir, I can not give you any information until you identify yourself.

Me: Hahah. /click

Don't call me and make demands. Seriously. If you aren't willing to tell me
why you just called this number, I'm not even going to verify I'm a person let
alone identify myself.

~~~
grkvlt
What's interesting here is how things are different from say 20-30 years ago,
when everyone would answer their land-line with 'Hello, this is NAME on
NUMBER, can I help you' or some variant. This is how I was taught to answer
the phone at home, certainly.

Perhaps what's changed is that calls are no longer expensive, and numbers are
no longer hand-dialled, so knowing as quickly as possible that you had
connected to the wrong number or person is not as important. There's probably
other cultural issues at work, I guess, to do with an increased awareness of
privacy and so on. The way we communicate has certainly been changed by the
Internet and mobile phones in an enormous way.

------
sunseb
I agree. Every times I receive a phone call, I know that:

Someone wants somethings from me ("please can you do this or that for me"). Or
it's bad news. :-/

Email and text messages are better tools for me: you answer when you want to
whom you want.

------
SwellJoe
I ran a business for several years that never quite grew large enough to
support additional technical staff, so I was always on call. It didn't happen
often, but I got enough calls (or pages, since that was how I dealt with it in
early couple of years) in the middle of the night to where I literally had
nightmares about a phone ringing for a while. Even today sometimes my stomach
hurts and I feel angry when the phone rings.

I've never _liked_ the phone, but I really hate it these days when there are
so many better ways to communicate.

~~~
gameshot911
I have an after-hours pager about once a year or so, and each time I get the
same sense of low-grade trepidation at night. Sleep quality also suffers
tremendously, I'm always wide awake at the lightest disturbance. It's
terrible, and I always feel for anyone who has to be on call at night with
regularity.

------
ChuckMcM
There are a number of phone answering services that will ameliorate this
issue. These guys charge $1/call ([http://www.answeramerica.com/telephone-
answering-service-pri...](http://www.answeramerica.com/telephone-answering-
service-prices.aspx)) (no relation to them).

In terms of startup ideas, there is probably an Uber like service opportunity
here. An app where your "operators" can download and put on their phone, and
when ever they want to they can put them selves "active" at which point you
will route calls to them over your VOIP network, they take calls, record the
data (name and number). You pay them per hour to be on-call, your customers
pay you per call, and for infrastructure you need an enterprise account with a
VOIP provider, a web site, and a way to accept payments. (That might be what
Answer America is doing, I don't know but it seems pretty doable)

~~~
dqv
It sounds like a good idea in theory, and excuse my being unimiginitive, but
answering services are even more blue collar than ride hailing. It's _a lot_
of work that I'm not sure many people want (the operators and everyone else
involved with running the service).

Anyway, the big problem with this concept is the profitability of answering
services is predicated on constantly changing the rates and dropping "dead
weight clients" (that is an industry term from _the_ guy who facilitates
answering service sales). I don't know if this is possible in an uberized
answering service.

Would answered calls be worth enough that people would pay a higher rate
during higher demand periods? I honestly don't think so.

The industry could stand some innovation - it is severely lacking. Why is it
that 70% of all answering service sites are not served with TLS?

(hint: proprietary answering service equipment vendors have choked the
industry and now it can't innovate)

~~~
ChuckMcM
I don't think you're being unimaginative, you're asking good questions.

There are a two things which are orthogonal here, one is capturing what might
be called 'fractional GDP' from available workers. Basically that is ways in
which people are creating an easy way for an individual worker to work or not
work based by creating a disintermediated interface between the service users
and the service providers. The 'App' economy, the 'Gig' economy, what ever you
call it, it tries to create a lightly held employment relationship between
service provider and client in the form of an application and a payment
provider.

The second thing is whether or not there is enough value in a telephone
answering service that it can be successfully monetized. That is an
operational efficiency question which would depend on some research into the
hows and whats of implementing such a service. Customers for such a service go
from the rich and famous who might go so far as to hire a staff member to
screen their calls, to someone who has never considered it. Using existing
infrastructure and full time staff clearly hits a minimum cost point, and then
folks like the author of the essay don't get enough value to hire the service
at the rates they need to charge.

Bottom line is if the service can be restructured in such a way to be
additionally more efficient such that you can capture the low end of the
market and perhaps serve the upper end at a better rate. If you can that is a
business.

------
mac01021
I solve this problem by having Google voice and a phone that I can use to make
calls, but usually don't receive calls on.

Missed calls and voicemail show up in my email, transcribed to text and
everything.

Given this, there is usually no reason to have a phone that can be rung by
arbitrary callers.

------
cdelb
If I don't recognize a number, or have a scheduled call, I will almost always
let the call go to voicemail. Then I'll decide if the call warrants a call
back. Usually it doesn't.

------
code_duck
I don't like to answer unexpected calls from anyone. It was different when the
phone was the only instant communication medium... one hd more time to prepare
for the content of a given call.

Now, it is _always_ a distraction... my girlfriend frequently calls without
warning in the middle of a text conversation, and i often don't answer because
i'm not ready. It takes a far greater level of attention and commitment to
talk on the phone than to participate in a text based conversation.

~~~
nicky0
I think you have it right. No obligation to answer a call. Not answering just
means that it's not a good time. Sadly a lot of people seem to think it is
rude.

------
dcosson
It's odd that despite the author's hatred of phone calls, he doesn't do pretty
basic things to avoid them. I've learned after a while that the first thing
you should do when you set up any new account like a credit card, gym, health
insurance, electric company, ISP, etc. is set up and link the online account
to the real account. Yes it's super annoying that these are usually not the
same thing, but once you know the routine it's not too complicated and you're
way better off setting it up front.

In addition to potentially avoiding phone calls in the future, this also makes
it more likely you'll actually be informed if you owe them money or otherwise
need to respond. Otherwise, they don't have to make any effort to contact you
over any medium other than paper mail (and if you're lucky phone), and if you
happen to not read it or not answer the call, or maybe you've moved addresses
and the forwarding period has ended, they can just send your account to
collections. Only then, once your credit is sufficiently ruined, will the
collections agency actually put some effort into getting a hold of you.

It's such a crazy system, there really needs to be some kind of national
digital notification service to replace USPS for sending people legally
binding notifications and bills.

------
PuffinBlue
I wonder if this might be a general trend as the bulk of communication has
pretty much already moved to text. If not outright phobia, at least dislike of
the medium of 'speaking' would seem to be likely.

More companies might need to accelerate towards offering text/chat options for
their customer service if they don't already. It may not directly put a
customer off, but it might be another signal in a list of comparisons that
pushes the scales in favour of a competitor.

------
ajmurmann
Besides his emotional issues there author touches on a few great points.

1\. Why do we use a loose, unstructured medium like voice for customer support
and the script and restrict almost everything about it? Maybe basic support
would be better in a different medium and only escalations go to phone? 2\.
Social engineering is still one of the most effective ways of hacking and the
phone is a great medium for that. Yet we apparently year the phone like a more
secure channel.

~~~
sweden
Because it is the most simplest and the most spread one? You don't need to
sign up for yet-another-communication-service; you are not dependent on
corporations like Facebook to conduct your business; you don't need to install
an app.

What else would you use?

~~~
icebraining
Chat on their website?

~~~
StudentStuff
Unreliable, easy to break, no way to contact a user back if they navigate
away. Plus most small/medium business websites are simple, static pages
currently, with no interactivity, let alone TLS to protect their users
conversations.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
In the past I had a neutral attitude towards telephones. Until one day I
realized I receive quite too many and started checking - how many of them are
really useful to me. How often someone calls to give me something, and how
often they want something from me. It turned out almost in 100% cases the
calls were from people who wanted something from me. And of course they wanted
a synchronous reply I couldn't or sometimes didn't want to give. So I decided
to block all calls instead of one number (from my second half - in this case
it doesn't matter if she wants to give or take, I'm still fine with all her
calls).

And you know what? Most friends quickly learned to respect it. They know they
can always communicate to me via e-mail and I'll happily call them back or
meet or whatever is needed. I use my phone mainly as a minicomputer with an
additional function of communicating with the person I choose. And for these
rare cases when I actually need to wait for an important phone call (this
happens once a year maybe) I use an old throwaway phone with a prepaid SIM
card. I only switch it on for as long as it's needed.

------
mcculley
I have seen this with young people in general (I don’t know the author’s age).
They have anxiety about having a real time conversation on the phone. They
don’t seem to have problems talking face-to-face, so it must be related to not
being able to see the face of the interlocutor. It is a problem when doing
business. Sometimes a phone call is the best way to resolve an issue.

~~~
wildrhythms
It's clearly affecting many young people. I think it's generational.

If you get the chance I suggest listening to Diane Rehm's segment:
[https://dianerehm.org/shows/2016-11-23/teens-and-
tech](https://dianerehm.org/shows/2016-11-23/teens-and-tech)

------
ravenstine
I've been saying essentially the same thing for years. I'm glad people are
catching on that the legacy phone system is a joke. Phone companies are also
complicit in the international scams performed over their system. Good luck
getting them to block repeat spam; they will usually suggest you install some
3rd party app on your phone before they even consider taking action. Even
then, they usually won't take action.

At one point I was getting dozens of spam calls every day. I thought I'd just
whitelist the numbers I'd want to let contact me, but for some reason Android
does not come with this feature. The problem with 3rd party apps is that you
still receive a call, but it hangs up immediately, so you will still have a
notification and sometimes a vibration if the app doesn't respond immediately.
So I said to hell with it and I turned off all incoming calls. If people need
to talk to me, they can leave a voicemail or text me beforehand.

~~~
wildrhythms
I do exactly the same. If I haven't agreed to a time in advance (and I usually
haven't), then my phone notifications will be off. I can be reached any time
of the day via text or email, but an unsolicited call is out of the question.

When companies insist on only contacting me directly via the phone and
expecting an immediate answer; yet forcing me into a labyrinth to talk to a
stranger when I need to contact them: Why would I ever agree to this horrible
one-way street?

------
djhworld
I wonder if it's an introvert/extrovert thing.

You see typically extroverted people having no problems with being on the
phone all the time, probably because they call equally extroverted people who
do the same. Look at sales people, or people who have to work with other
people a lot, they approach the phone as a tool for getting what they want and
quickly.

My solution, as an introvert, is to never answer calls from people who are not
my family. I have a twillio service setup that manages my voicemail and sends
me an SMS message of the transcription, that way I can review the content and
purpose of the call and decide what to do next (although I don't think
Twilio's voice transcription service can accurately decipher British accents
that well so you do end up with some hilarious results)

99% of time it's either recruiters who've managed to scalp my number from
somewhere, or the odd spam caller.

------
walshemj
Anyone exhibiting Mr Fishers phobia needs to consider seeing a therapist - Its
going to cause them major problems at work and socially.

I have noticed a reluctance to use the goddammed phone as intended - rather
than call me to discus something important and time sensitive people will just
add a task to base camp in a some what passive aggressive way

~~~
wildrhythms
I have no social anxiety or fear of public speaking or anything of the sort (I
studied theatre for years and now I do improv in my free time). I have no
problems at work; I like to think I have no problems socially.

Yet I also hate telephones for all of the reasons that the author listed. Part
of a past job involved helping customers over the phone. Calls are
interruptive, unreliable, and inefficient. Repeating names, addresses,
numbers, or relying on customers to accurately describe something. There is no
real authentication.

Maybe it's a good medium for people who have trouble writing/typing
effectively.

My friends do not use the telephone either. We agree where/when via text or
email.

------
xnxn
Preach it.

Also, has call quality completely tanked in the last decade or is it just me?

~~~
mmagin
Yes, it's all shitty low bandwidth mobile phone voice codecs or VOIP stuff.
Good old digital trunk lines (8 bit 8 ksample/sec mu-law -- the same as the
.au file encoding, I think) sounded really quite good.

~~~
StudentStuff
ulaw isn't all that good, but EVRC running at full rate, nevermind how Sprint
and Verizon ran it at much less than that just butchers voice calls.

Opus will hopefully end the mish-mash of codecs that currently permeate
telephony, as it is much higher quality at lower bitrates, and unlike GSM,
ulaw, and even G722 (which some call HD Voice) it can handle packet loss
gracefully. Makes all commonly used codecs look terrible in comparison.

------
astura
I literally will patronize business that cost a little more just because they
let me schedule online.

For me, I'll give an example - chimney sweep. The company I use lets me
request a service appointment online and lists it's prices online. The rest I
saw I had to call for both prices and appointments. No, thanks.

~~~
wildrhythms
Calling for prices... outside of very special circumstances, no thank you!

"If you have to ask for the price, then you can't afford it."

Well, I probably can afford it, but if I have to ask for the price then the
business is asking more from me than I am of them. I'll go with whatever
competitor doesn't seem to be actively hiding something from me, thanks.

------
sdfjkl
> I unplugged my landline phone. I have only plugged it back in once, and
> briefly, when debugging my internet connection, to check whether the line
> had a dial tone.

That's generally the only thing landline phones are good for anymore. When I
lived in the UK I was with the nerdiest ISP there (AAISP) and they offer a
"broadband only" landline, that carries your DSL and a basic diagnostic
service including a dialtone (mostly to prevent wayward OpenReach engineers
from misdiagnosing your copper pair as "unused"), but no real phone calls.
Suited me fine.

------
JumpCrisscross
I suspect a good fraction of my excess income is a product of enjoying in-
person meetings and phone calls _and_ working in tech. For certain classes of
coördination and problems, voice is more efficient.

------
Feniks
Want to reach me? WhatsApp or a good old fashioned email. Your call be
unanswered and I haven't listened to voicemail in years.

Life is too short for inane babbling. I can read faster than the average
person can talk.

~~~
simonbarker87
But the average person can’t type faster than they can talk. Generally a
conversation has two sides and typing forces both sides to express themselves
in a much slower manner, the time you save reading you will waste typing

~~~
Feniks
Typing forces people to think before they act. It is marvelous. Synchronous
communication is overrated. A well written message of a few sentences can
replace an hour of talking.

~~~
grkvlt
The 'well written' part of that is what many people seem to struggle with. It
can sometimes take over an hour to produce just a paragraph or two containing
a 'well written' message with the right style, optics, tone, and connotations,
spending time checking the spelling, punctuation, grammar, and factual content
for accuracy and readability. A hastily thrown together couple of sentences
with spelling errors, unexplained abbreviations and acronyms, and perhaps even
missing some important detail will cause more damage and waste more time than
that hour long phone conversation.

------
tareqak
I've had really good luck with following the instructions here:
[https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-
unsolici...](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-
mail-phone-calls-and-email) . I've registered for do not call, and opted out
for pre-screened offers of credit permanently. I only recently learned about
[https://dmachoice.thedma.org/register.php](https://dmachoice.thedma.org/register.php)
for physically mailed spam, and I'm getting around to it.

I know it's all YMMV, but the number of spam phone calls that I receive has
dropped to zero (not exaggerating here). There used to be one annoying
travel/timeshare caller, but I reported them to the FTC two or three times,
and that took care of it. I personally believe that it's fairly easy because
of the time and date information that your phone's dialer/phone app records,
but it could be easier with a bespoke FTC "donotcall" app. I'd rather involve
the FTC in this sort of thing because it is part of their mandate, and
benefits that they bring get propagated to all phone users
(Android/iPhone/Windows Phone/feature phones/landlines).

------
chriswarbo
Other than the NHS conspiracy theory and the desire to hand even more power
over to facebook, I completely understand where the author's coming from.
Especially not knowing who'll be on the other end (caller ID only identifies
the number, not the person); and trying to anticipate and gather all necessary
details to hand before embarking, due to being tethered to the wall/desk.

I've spent a while thinking about this over the years. I think a much better
form of interaction is the landline answering machine: the caller will be
heard for a few seconds ("Hi it's Bob, are you there?"), the recipient can
decide whether to answer, and if not then the caller doesn't know if they were
available or not. Contrast that with current BS like "it disconnected after
one ring, so I know you hit cancel".

A similar mode of interaction is that of the walkie talkie, although that
doesn't give the option of leaving a message.

------
rsync
This _seems_ off-topic but I have a suspicion a lot of people in this thread
will find the twiml for "ring forever" to be useful and interesting:

    
    
      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
      <Response>
          <Pause length="600"/>
          <Hangup />
      </Response>
    

(that will ring for 10 minutes before hanging up)

I think this will be interesting because there is probably a lot of overlap
between people critical of phones and people critical of voicemail ... but
it's actually sort of difficult to have a phone without voicemail.

If you disable voicemail with your carrier, it doesn't work the way you think
(hope) it will. When you fail to answer, the carrier gives some weird message
about the subscriber being unavailable which just makes people think you don't
pay your phonebill or something. In short, you cannot, from the standpoint of
your carrier, just have no response other than ringing.

But with twilio you can ...

------
dpc_pw
I have a Google Voice number, and phone set to ring only for people on a
whitelist. So I pick the phone only from family and friends and calls that I
expected. Everybody else gets to leave a voice message. I get a transcription
on email and call back if it's worth it. If they don't leave a voice message,
that means it wasn't important.

------
zkomp
Yes: +1 to this. I'm probably one of those 4%. But this "phobia" might just
initially be a slight negative feeling of not knowing who or what it is. But
it is enough to tip the balance since the majority of calls you get are spam
or otherwise unsolicited crap, and the few real calls actually meant for you
arn't positive either - then it becomes a learned fear that reinforces itself
every time.

I would never call if there is another way using text or other medium, I will
not answer if it is not known or there is a good probability I know what it
is. If I really have to make a call, that entails preparations and lots of
wasted energy (it is wasted since would write it down, and then I could just
send it as text and it would be easy to read and understand...)

Sure I can and do use Truecaller, and other ways to block spam or unwanted
calls, and It really does work. I still hate the phone though.

------
krick
Seems like unjust complaining about the phenomena, when the technology is
actually to blame. I do dislike phones myself, but have accepted the status
quo of obligatory having one and answering the calls. But it seems
unacceptably stupid how hard it is in Android to configure what seems to me
like the most basic features of the dialer. One would think that built-in
answering machine, completely transparent phone number blacklist/whitelist
configuration (including time of the day, CID, "mode" and appropriate action —
reject w/ or w/o notifying me, silently ignore, answer automatically, answer
manually, etc.) is a must have. But call handling (on par with a contact list
and other "mandatory" apps) is about the lamest software on my smart"phone".
Why the hell this device has a browser built-in, but cannot handle
incoming/outgoing calls properly?!

------
makecheck
Phone calls are like the most obnoxious possible pop-up web ad, taking over
your entire display and demanding immediate attention, while being the thing
you least care about at that instant. They manage to be _worse_ than ads, too:
at least with an ad you’re doing something explicit when the ad appears (like
clicking a link); a phone call can literally interrupt you in the middle of
typing, and HIDE everything you’re doing! Bonus points if you were about to
tap on something and end up tapping one of the buttons on your pop-up phone
call instead.

I can’t believe we’re at version 11 of iOS when people needed a
backgrounded/tiny phone UI since about iOS 2.

------
noir_lord
I hate the phone because the lack of visual cues and the delay makes a
conversation really hard, I find myself starting to talk too early/too late
and I find it exhausting.

I really hate the phone when someone rings me and spends 10 minutes getting to
the point of the call which is something that could have been done in a
text/email, wasn't urgent and largely is a yes/no thing.

Also if you send and email and then ring 20 minutes later to see if I got the
email a) I hate you b) I'll DND your extension (I read the manual for our
phones at work - I think I am probably the only one who has).

The only person who can actually make my work phone make a ringing noise is
the boss, everyone else who isn't on the DND list just makes the display flash
blue.

------
viraptor
> If I were rich, I would have a permanent secretary. All calls first reach
> the secretary. The secretary would arrange the conversation for a date and
> time that suits my calendar.

I'd be surprised if there isn't a twillio-based system for this already...

------
koiz
Imagine if every person in the world had the ability, at their arbitrary whim,
to anonymously activate your fire alarm inside your home. That is the reality
of the instant message. There is nothing quite as rude as the new message
chime.

------
djhworld
Making phone calls "unnannounced" has always been a struggle of mine, mainly
because I start to think "am I bothering them?" and then negative thoughts
start to flood in. I do have anxiety issues which I go to therapy for, but I'd
put making phonecalls lower down the priority list of things to tackle because
it's not that important to me in the grand scheme of things.

Completely irrational, I know, but that's where I'm at. Usually if I want to
make a phonecall I arrange it with the person for a set time that suits both
parties.

------
Zigurd
For about $300/mo you can have a personal assistant who will do what he wants
to have done with phone calls. But, for free, you can have Google Voice, which
you should get anyway if you travel internationally or use Hangouts, which
will block spam calls and screen calls from numbers not in your known
contacts. If he works with a group of people in a consultancy, there are
numerous small business pbx-aaS services that have auto-attendant features for
call screening or that can be used in combination with a human personal
assistant.

------
indescions_2017
Face-time can be magical. Especially around the holidays. When clusters of
your tribe gather in geographically disperse points. But you can still
experience a simulacrum of "presence".

But author has a point about banks being particularly egregious offenders of
phone dependency. They are progressing. With voice print and zelle. As well as
iris scans. But I still need face to face in person meetings about once per
month. And though face authenticated live full duplex video can serve as a
proxy. Trust that is built from a personal connection may never be disrupted.

~~~
StudentStuff
I've essentially written Facetime off at this point, between firewall issues,
hit and miss support among my contacts, and multiple frustrating attempts to
use it with my mother, it just isn't worth it. Easier to throw her on Signal
and use that, plus she can join the family group chat then.

------
paul7986
On my iPhone I use the AT&T Call Protect app and it works pretty well. Though
I am still getting a few spam calls from phone numbers with my same exchange
which go unanswered.

I would think sooner or later the telemarketers are training the public/the
masses that answering unknown calls isn’t worth it making it an unprofitable
business. Just read all the comments here and on Facebook re: this... ppl just
don’t answer the phone like they use to.

For me If we haven’t spoken before text, email, FB or leave me a voice message
and I’ll call you or actually answer your call.

------
siliconc0w
Text messages have their own issues. I kinda like 'em for, 'what do you want
at the store' type queries but there is this whole 'text game' flirting thing
I think I'm supposed to learn how to do and can't really figure out. It feels
like a 90s action movie with two people shooting back and forth at each other
for 20 minutes to little effect. Highly edited perpetual conversations filled
with weird iconography that, at this point, I pretty much choose at random.
This is what being old feels like.

------
blacktulip
I must be a very different person compare to the author. I prefer phone calls
a lot more than text/emails. Because I can _usually_ get a result in a much
shorter timespan.

------
nerdponx
_Everyone complains about companies’ customer service being terrible. But the
companies are not the real problem here. The problem is the medium. The
problem is synchronous communication. The problem is the telephone. I hate
telephones._

What? No.

Once upon a time, a business department could take a message and return it
later. You know, exactly like what you would do with email. Asynchronously.

------
Spooky23
This would be appropriately titles “i hate anxiety disorders”

------
punnerud
Studied in Boston and loved coming back to Norway, no more phone spam! Log on
to a central governmental service, with your 2-auth, opt out your phone-number
and mail-address (the paper one) and then you don’t get more spam after
2-3weeks. It takes some time for everyone to update. Why are are there not
something similar in the US?

------
sp332
Part of this rant reminded me of a Ray Bradbury short story (5 pages) called
The Murderer. [http://www.sediment.uni-
goettingen.de/staff/dunkl/zips/The-M...](http://www.sediment.uni-
goettingen.de/staff/dunkl/zips/The-Murderer.pdf) [PDF]

------
charlysisto
Phone for me is an intrusion when it's not very close people. I tend to hate
phone as well but if the conventions around phoning changed like, you'd
systematically agree through messaging on a certain moment to call etc I guess
I could reconcile with the dreaded instrument.

------
DanBC
James has a disability, and thus can ask for reasonable adjustments under the
Equality Act 2010.

It's easier to lie and say "I'm deaf" because they have some awareness of
that.

Also, in England, you can self refer to IAPT and most people start under 6
weeks and 96% of people start under 18 weeks.

~~~
DanBC
I'm not sure why this has been downvoted. James wrote this:

> Recently, when I was at mum’s alone, the house phone rang. I didn’t answer
> it. It rang again immediately. I didn’t answer it. It rang again
> immediately. I stood over it, willing it to stop, palms sweating.

That meets the UK legal definition of a disability, and under UK law he can
ask for reasonable adjustments to avoid telephones. He could give his mental
health status as the reason he needs the reasonable adjustment, but most
places won't know much about that, and so it would be easier if he used
hearing impairment - many places know about hearing impairment, and have
processes in place to avoid telephone use.

Maybe I should have said I'm speaking from personal experience: I've got a
bank and some bits of government departments and some bits of the NHS to use
email rather than telephone with me.

------
dingo_bat
Maybe this is an individual thing but I'd rather talk on the phone for any
important conversation. For example, if I need to contact my bank for
something, I'm always going to choose a phone call over chat. A phone call
with a follow-up email if needed.

~~~
wildrhythms
What makes the audio medium more 'important' to you? If 1:1 is important, what
if you were provided the direct email address of a representative at the
company? What are you able to convey over the phone that you can't directly
via some other method?

~~~
dingo_bat
I think the instant feedback is the most important thing for me. If I want to
convey something that is a bit important for me, I need to get it done and
move on to something else. I can tick off that item in my mental checklist
immediately. With an email or chat, there is a delay. And there is no
guarantee of feedback. I need to switch to another task knowing that this one
isn't done yet.

~~~
wildrhythms
I can understand this for some things; for others, the phone is an interface
to an email. Can you give an example?

"We'll send a service technician to you as soon as we can!"

-> Effectively an email/form that I myself could have sent

"I updated your account with this new information."

-> Effectively an email/form that I myself could have sent

"What does the error message say?"

-> Better conveyed through email/chat

If you feel like your requests are being ignored over non-phone mediums, then
that sounds like a failure of the organization and not email/text/chat as a
medium, at least that's how I see it.

------
RantyDave
I've had exactly one spam call ... no, I lie, two but from the same company.
GoDaddy.

------
taf2
Uh why allow anyone other than people on your contact list to even get
anything other than a busy signal ... I do this on my home phone and mobile.
If my phone rings it’s someone I know.

------
bbanyc
Cake had it right almost 15 years ago:
[https://youtu.be/QT1wOS1v97I](https://youtu.be/QT1wOS1v97I)

------
chx
1\. Gethuman will handle a lot of these truly unpleasant phone calls. They are
awesome. I had them call Telus, the cost was $30. Worth every cent. Took me
several months to realize I am just unable to do this one. I ... just
couldn't.

2\. I never answer my calls. They go to voicemail. All of them. I do not even
have incoming phone service in the first place; I have a data only plan and an
Anveo subscription. I will call you back via VoIP if I choose to do so, at my
convenience, at my desk, indeed armed with all the data I need to make a
successful call.

------
pishpash
Spammer have hacked phones, after email, search results, and blog comments. If
there were competition, somebody might have solved this problem!

------
hartator
I definitely can relate.

I still don't get why people would prefer phone over texts or emails. The main
thing I miss is a copy and paste!

------
Bromskloss
It seems to me that he never really gets to the point of why he is afraid of
telephones (even making calls, apparently).

------
mrhappyunhappy
I just get a fresh number and don't tell anyone about it. Every unwelcome call
goes straight to voicemail.

------
exabrial
Telephone is not secure, neither is the mail. And we send important stuff all
the time through it.

------
partycoder
I blocked inbound international calls and since then no more spam calls.

------
dheera
I hate not just telephones, but being funneled into this whole culture of
being disturbed, and disturbing people anywhere, anytime, at will, for things
that can wait.

As both an introvert and a technical person I do almost everything I do with
deep concentration, whether that be coding, playing piano, reading papers,
biking, driving, or hiking. A single phone ring, a single "hey what's up",
while I'm in the middle of coding causes a cataclysmic implosion of an
immensely complicated thought structure that takes a several minutes to
rebuild. A single phone ring while I'm biking or driving is honestly
dangerous. A single phone ring while I'm playing the piano and not only will I
lose track of what I'm trying to learn, but I will also not be in a state of
mind to speak a human language, and will probably answer the phone call with
gibberish. Hence, my phone is in airplane mode a _lot_ of the time. The rest
of the time I have a call blocker on that only accepts calls from a few known
numbers. The only time I turn off the call blocker is if someone has pre-
arranged a phone call with me and it's on my calendar.

I also highly value social time and try to give 100% undivided attention
during them. I loathe people who look at their phones while I'm trying to talk
to them, and people who ask me to go to dinner with them and then go on a
phone call for 50% of the dinner. It makes me feel unimportant, makes me feel
like I wasted my time trekking out to meet them. I don't want to do the same
thing to other people.

I realize that not everyone is like that. But I get the worst end of the stick
when people think they can just call me "sometime in the afternoon".
Realistically that means I will get NOTHING done that entire afternoon except
wait for your damn phone call because I need to deal with your inability to
schedule a time and respect my time. I honestly miss the days when cell phones
had not yet been invented. I miss the days when people would just set a time
and place, meet, talk, leave, and get on with business according to a plan.

I do, however, love the ability to access the internet from anywhere for maps,
bus/train times, news, and other information, when _I_ want it.

Oh, another reason I hate calls and typically shut my phone off is because
it's increasingly difficult to do so in privacy. I spend a lot of time
outdoors, on public transit, and so on, and the last thing I need is a bunch
of bystanders staring and eavesdropping on my calls, and even commenting on
what I'm speaking. I also don't like it when contexts mix, e.g. friends from
different circles hear conversations of mine from another circle. It results
in me going into a shock state where I basically cannot talk. It happens so
often that I just stopped using voice calls altogether, for the most part.

~~~
wildrhythms
>they can just call me "sometime in the afternoon".

Oh dear GOD this is possibly one of the worst phrases to ever be uttered by a
human being. I have no doubt that this single phrase has stolen countless
entire days or weeks of many people's life.

Waiting for your call means not doing something that I can concentrate on.
I'll even avoid conversations with others while waiting for your call because
I don't want to have to take your call and break a meaningful conversation or
make the other person feel like your call is worth more of my time than
theirs. I have to stay chained to my phone, often chained to a secluded area
where I know your call and our conversation won't disturb others around me.
Waiting for your call means all other appointments and events between now and
your call are hereby cancelled. I'm afraid to use the restroom while waiting
for your call because I fear I'll miss your call while washing my hands. I'm
afraid to eat or drink- what if I get the hiccups? What if my soda pop is
especially carbonated and I end up burping all during our discussion? Why am I
subjected to wait on you at all? No, my entire life stops because of your
choice to use this inefficient, synchronous communication medium. My life is
too short to wait for your call.

Text message is OK

------
therealmarv
Mailbox? Turn it on for everything without waiting. Async done.

------
njarboe
Too bad I can't charge everyone a dollar (or five) who calls me unless they
are on my white list. I think this would fix spam calls completely and still
let unwhite listed people contact me.

------
liviu
me, too. i have an old phone, and i keep it just for few people to call me
only if its need. i don't call others, i hate phones.

------
mirimir
I generally don't like being interrupted. But, paraphrasing Marv, I love spam
callers. No matter what you do to them, you don't feel bad.

~~~
mirimir
It seems that I've offended a few people. Sorry. I ought to know better than
making comments that are contentious, brief and joking.

My point is that I'm getting old. And so I've become more sympathetic to
issues around spam calls to older people. Who may be hard of hearing, slow to
understand, and gullible. I suffer from none of that so far. But I can fake
it, following the Eddie script.

Basically, I give callers a chance to get that I'm old, and a little
incoherent. If they back off, and apologize for bothering me, I thank them,
and wish them the best of luck.

But if they push, knowing that I'm old and apparently vulnerable, I segue into
full Eddie. With no regrets.

------
daxfohl
Supposedly it's tied to Meyers-Briggs INFP personality type.

------
modzu
async ftw

------
ducttape12
Sounds to me like this guy has an anxiety disorder that he's masking as a
hatred of phones.

~~~
kyberias
Yeah, let's make diagnoses of people we don't know because of some blog post.

~~~
robbrown451
So how are you supposed to intelligently take in an article like this if you
can't speculate on the causes of the trauma he reports? "Diagnosing" someone
is by definition done by an expert. Having a suspicion as to the cause of
something (even if that cause might be a mental disorder), is something
regular people do, in order to make good decisions.

~~~
kyberias
Because there are a lot of interesting topics in his blog post that can be
discussed that have nothing to do with whether he has some disorder or not.

For example, I can actually pretty much relate to this guy's feelings about
telephones. Is it also caused by me having some mental disorders?

------
albertgoeswoof
Unsolicited or unexpected phone calls are annoying, but this guy has an
anxiety disorder and should probably attend CBT or psychotherapy as it is
obviously significantly impacting his life in a negative way.

Also, text is not always a the best way of communicating- a lot of information
is conveyed in someone’s voice which is often difficult to put on paper. It
can also be way faster to speak to someone, particularly where a problem is a
little complex and requires information to be exchanged between both parties
multiple times.

~~~
Tharkun
Have you considered not diagnosing mental illnesses in HN comments? Let alone
offering "treatment advice" on a case you know nothing about, without having
spoken to the person in question?

~~~
monk_e_boy
He spent the best part of a day compiling a spreadsheet of possible answers to
a conversation, the wrote a lengthy blog post telling us about it. That is not
normal.

~~~
kyberias
Quit categorizing people into normal and not normal. It's not normal.

~~~
monk_e_boy
Sure it's normal for people to make an assessment on other people. Some of
those people fall outside the bell curve.

The middle of the bell curve for a particular trait (e.g. talking on the
telephone) is normal - so about 90% of the population.

You want to redefine the word normal. OK, sure. What should I use? Different?
Strange? Unique? Flower? Snowflake? I don't know. Sounds pretty odd behaviour
to me. Not wrong, not bad, not dirty. Just weird. Odd. Not normal.

~~~
Tharkun
Have you done/read any studies on people's telephone behaviour? No? Then how
can you speculate about what does and doesn't fall within 2 standard
deviations of the mean?

------
rhapsodic
Usually, posts like this, where the submitter's username matches the domain
name of the posted article, get flagged and killed pretty quickly.

~~~
dang
Nothing wrong with someone posting their own stuff, if it's good. I haven't
read this article, but presumably lots of HN upvoters have assessed it that
way.

~~~
rhapsodic
_> Nothing wrong with someone posting their own stuff, if it's good. I haven't
read this article, but presumably lots of HN upvoters have assessed it that
way._

I didn't intend to imply there was anything wrong with it, I was only sharing
an observation.

And yet, a number of people felt compelled to downvote me because of it.

------
wruza
I noticed that people of my age (30+) who don’t take unknown calls usually
feel inner insecurities that influence (or cause) their unhappy lives. It may
be debt, unmet responsibilities, fear of being abused, etc. I can remember the
time when landlines were new and everyone was excited to take a call and to
speak to someone who’s not even around.

The story also reminds me an old joke/anecdote. English gentlemen club, a
gentleman naps in a chair near the fireplace. His boots are almost on fire.
One man notices that, but the club etiquette disallows one to speak to the
person he doesn’t know. After looking for pretty long he finally finds someone
who at least knows the name of that gentleman and is able to speak to him.
They wake him up and after a greeting the gentleman who knows him says: “Dear
Sir, it is rainy weather today, and this fireplace is conveniently hot. By the
way, I’m sad to tell you that your left boot is already burned down.”

I think that author puts too many gentle ceremony into just a short call.

~~~
pfranz
I think what landlines were used for when they were first rolled out are very
different from what cellphones are used for today. Snail mail, for me today is
almost exclusively junk mail. I still have occasional formal notices from my
bank or companies I do business with and a few times a year a seasonal card
from family. I bet my attitude towards mail differs from people's attitudes 50
years ago. I think the same goes for telephone calls.

