In Praise of Phone Calls | Hacker News Reader

In Praise of Phone Calls

newyorker.com

89 pointstintinnabula55 comments

Ironically - I strictly talk to certain people over phone. For instance, my parents. I don't have a good relationship with them and therefore keep distance by making it only possible to really talk to me through phone calls. I think I've texted them a total of five messages. I'll text other people quite a bit - to the point where we've rarely ever talked on the phone and it's awkward to talk to them on it. (In person - we're fine)

Nowadays, I find it very hard to find time to talk to people on the phone that isn't at an awkward time. (Or that I can do with privacy - as I live in a very small in-law unit in the bay area) When we do, it's for long stretches. 30 minutes or an hour. I don't think I know how to have a short phone call with friends. So, sometimes I call a friend midday at work and go for a long walk.

It's nice. I like hearing their voices and I can always hear the things they're up to. It's a peak into their life. I can visualize them getting out of the car, driving along, grocery shopping, arranging the apartment, cooking dinner, etc. as we talk. I'm usually the weird one - just walking on the sidewalk or sitting in my unit alone - maybe tiding up a bit.

Video chat can be nice but it feels stilted. We're not exactly in eachother's lives at the moment. Instead, it's an orchestrated interaction rather than, "Hey, let's go do some errands together like we used to when we lived closer."

Thank you for being so candid.

A landline costs just as much as a smart phone plan, so very few people can justify the cost of both. I find that having just one end of a conversation on a landline improves the quality greatly and pay the ~$40 a month to have one (also, the long ago installed alarm is hooked up to it). Smart phone to smart phone calls are bad in many ways (drops, static, distortion, etc.) but what I find the most annoying is the excess delay. The old landline to landline calls had no more delay than talking to someone in person.

If you've got good enough wired internet, a voip based "landline" is pretty inexpensive, and if you run with the G.711 codec, it's basically landline equivalent, with a small latency penalty (much less than cellphone though).

In theory G.722 (AMR-wideband, aka "HD voice") is coming to cell phones via VoLTE and is also available (in theory) via VoIP providers, and should be better than landline quality, but with added latency. Of course, once enough steps have added latency it becomes noticeable, but perhaps the increased frequency range makes it worthwhile; and it requires interop work between carriers.

Wideband AMR has been available for a decade on 3G, Eg https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11138503

Being available and actually being used when making calls are unfortunately two different things.

It's certainty been in service on the network I use for many years. It is noticeable when I call another enabled endpoint.

The AMR wideband codec is G.722.2 - it's separate from the ADPCM implementation standardized as G.722. The two sound quite different.

Everyone's ears are different, but I can't say I've been crazy about AMR wideband. Linear predictive coding in general has that characteristic underwater sound.

There are VoIP providers that are incredibly cheap.

As an example, I have an account with voip.ms. They charge $0.85/month for the phone number, and then $0.009/minute. (E-911 service costs a little extra.)

It's worth it just for having proper 911 service at home. The improved voice quality over cellular is an added benefit.

I was an Ooma early adopter and am still grandfathered into their initial "all calls free" program. I enjoy the call quality as much as how much I haven't had to pay for phone calls over the 11+ years.

Note, I'm not including internet costs because I'd be getting that anyway.

Most of the people I call are willing to use FaceTime Audio or Signal (in the case of FaceTime Audio they probably don't even notice that they're using it). Since everyone who calls me is usually on a cell phone anyway, I don't gain any audio quality with a landline, do I?

On a fully time division multiplexed (read: no IP packets; just end-to-end multiplexed serial streams) call, it should be no more than ~40 milliseconds of latency from one side of the United States to the next, or no more than quantization delay from the g.711 codec (0.125 milliseconds) when simply traversing the bus of the local switch.

Thankfully, there's discounts stashed here and there for landline phones. Some are easier to get than others, though, and it definitely doesn't help that like with anything else from a telco, the price keeps getting jacked up.

Very very revealing! Thanks! i would assume that VoIP calling would suffer from the same "packet switching" issue that mobile telephones do:-((

With the current emergency caused by the corona virus there is a huge up tick in remote work. A whole sector of this suffers immensely from "Latency" issues. There is a huge market for the solution of that problem: Choral groups, various meditation practices involving a shared "soundscape", etc.

Perhaps a quick solution for the more professional groups with that issue is to require all members to have a "Land Line" and then do a conference call.

I thought that having a landline only increased exposure to spam and robocalls. How do you filter so your phone rings only from people you'd want to talk to?

My Spectrum voice service is $10/mo and has a 30-number white list. Everyone else is blocked.

Selective call forwarding, if you have it, will get rid of a fair number of things. The do not call list as well is still surprisingly effective.

I have a number of customers for my app CallStop who are elderly and use the app to filter calls on landlines. It works by forwarding calls from their landline to the app, and then customers receive calls via VOIP PushKit and filter them via a whitelist.

When the robo call problem spiked on my landline, I was getting 5-10 per day. Then I stated answering the phone with the phrase "Please leave a message at the tone." and made a beep noise. This got the calls down to 0-2 per day after awhile (also, I'm on the do not call list). Most people could tell it was really me and, if not, I could just wait until they said something to respond. I've heard that some organizations call numbers to see if and when actual people pick up and then sell that information to scammers. Signaling to them that the number goes to a machine seemed to reduce scam calls.

You can get a VOIP landline pretty cheap. I ported my 20-year old landline phone number from Verizon to a VOIP provider. I now pay $5/month for what used to cost $45.

> The old landline to landline calls had no more delay than talking to someone in person.

Depends. They had such awful sound quality that they could induce delay while you tried to understand what the other person had said.

When was this?

I didn't have a cell phone for years after they were available and popular(I'm talking about iphone era and all) due to incarceration among other issues, I've spent more time than the average bear on a variety of phones. Pay or otherwise.

I have never had that problem on a landline. Maybe some mild static with a cordless phone but from mid 90's on what you're describing was not a big deal at all.

> A landline costs just as much as a smart phone plan, so very few people can justify the cost of both.

This may be true in the US, but isn't the case everywhere. Here in France, I've got a landline number for free included with my Internet. I don't use it because I have no need (and the only people with whom I'd speak are back in the US), but it's there nonetheless.

The landline in the Netherlands costs 1 euro a month extra on my home internet bill. Granted it's a digital line now, the old analog lines are disconnected.

Most people I know only have a landline because they had it since before mobile phones were widespread. And many older people still call on the landline because they're just used to that number.

I feel the author's point about having a dedicated physical device. I feel that way about my preference for a fountain pen and a notebook versus my laptop.

The thing I absolutely cannot relate to though is the joy over getting "surprise" phone calls. I don't want a land-line, even if the quality is better, because I don't want another device making noises and demanding my attention. Sure you could unplug it when you're not using it, but I'd feel like too much of a jerk doing that. Voicemails are also just another thing that make noise or lights and demand attention.

I hate podcasts, and have issues with audio processing in general - but in some ways I actually think ham radios are the ideal. I don't normally talk on mine - but sometimes I like listening in on some of the local repeaters and hearing the convos there. I'm out in the NC mountains right now, so It's kind of cool to hear the accents of some of the older guys (reminds me of my grandad's accent), plus they're always swapping crazy stories. I also like the give-and-take nature of ham radio, since people tend to be very cognizant of how much time they are taking up and the need to make space on the channel to let others jump in and talk. And of course, I like that you can just turn it off if you're not feeling like hearing people's voices.

I remember the days of surprise phone calls, and enjoyed them because there really weren't other forms of distraction. People usually called because they were interested, not always because they needed something or to work out the logistics of something else.

Today, surprise phone calls seem unwanted because we already have other devices beeping, vibrating, and popping up at us constantly. Because people overshare their lives on social media, few talk one-on-one to ask each other how they are doing. When they do call, it's because they need something, or because of bad news, like a relative dying.

My problem with "surprise phone calls" is that they don't fit in my schedule. With a full time job and two going kids, I am always busy with something. The chance of the call coming when I have 5 free minutes is very unlikely. I am either busy with work, making dinner, putting the kids to bed, etc. I can't just stop those things to talk to someone. This is especially true for calls about something I need to think about... I can't context switch that easily.

There used to be a protocol for this: Oh hey, cool person I like and would like to talk to if I wasn’t in the middle of something! I’m in the middle of (thing), can I call you back in like ten minutes?

Nowadays surprise calls are mean someone's trying to sell something I don't need and to scam me.

We have a rotary phone with a super loud ringer that only family can use (have the phone number). It’s super fun for the kids.

I've hated phone calls all my life - I still dread making them today (and I'm a 40 year old man). I will literally miss extremely important business opportunities because I put off calling someone for too long. Texting and emails are life savers for me, and if people tell me "they're not the texting type", I'll simply disengage.

As a 33 year old I really am confused by this statement.

While I love my texting, slack, etc, nothing replaces the low-latency engagement (intimacy) of a one on one phone call. I can parse someone's tone very easily on a phone call. Text rarely conveys such depth.

>nothing replaces the low-latency engagement (intimacy) of a one on one phone call.

For a lot of people, texting absolutely does replace the intimacy of a phone call. I have an ex-girlfriend who almost never talked to me on the phone, and only wanted to text, and she was like this with all her friends too. Note the "ex-" part here...

I struggle with phone calls. I find them quite anxiety inducing with anyone who I don't know well. I think because I find it hard to read tone of voice accurately, and to control my tone of voice to accurately convey my emotions.

I generally much prefer in person contact. And messaging to arrange it.

Also: not sure if you are young enough to be in the MSN generation? But a good chunk of my generation (I'm 26), grew up spending every evening conversing via text for a chunk of our teenage years. We got pretty good at conveying emotion through text (using longggg words... elipsis for pauses, emojis, and idioms (lol, lmao, AF), etc)

I'm also 26, and I definitely relate to the teenage IM experience. I think the problem with phone calls is that it's an unnatural level of focus to give someone you don't know well. when you meet face-to-face, there's always some little distractions available to fill the gaps in the conversation. silence is way worse without context; after fifteen seconds or so, the other person will say "hey, are you still there?" I also find myself missing one word out of every other sentence the person says, so there's a lot of backtracking.

as an aside, I've noticed that my cohort of people who grew up sending hundreds of messages/texts to their friends every night don't really interact that way anymore over text. back then if the person was online, they would usually respond immediately and you could exchange a lot of information really fast. now every response seems to take a few minutes or an hour (I do this myself too, don't mean to blame anyone). it has the weird effect of making text a less useful way to communicate than it was ten or fifteen years ago. I guess when everything is immediate and urgent, nothing is?

> as an aside, I've noticed that my cohort of people who grew up sending hundreds of messages/texts to their friends every night don't really interact that way anymore over text.

Yeah, same here. Don't have time for that anymore! I also have the freedom to go an see people in person in a way that I didn't back then (well not currently, but most of the time!).

It's even worse for me if I know the person.

Yeah, I'm only a couple of years younger than you and I feel the opposite. I'm always trying so hard to parse the words and meaning, that I easily miss the sentiment of spoken words.

It's one of those things that I realize is probably just on my end though. I've had speech issues since I was a kid and am technically on the autism spectrum. I've learned enough by now so that most people wouldn't guess either of things - but real-time streaming audio processing is one of the few things I just can't learn or accommodate for. It's like I'm always 3 seconds behind in understanding what was just said. Often, I can even recite back what was said to me before I can parse it. I'm surprisingly fine at highly technical conversations / phone troubleshooting though - because it's easier to anticipate the path of the conversation and sentiment isn't usually a factor. Taking tons of notes helps too.

From my experience, text can absolutely convey a significant degree of intimacy - but it takes a great deal of practice to do so fluidly. There is some latency - but the trade-off works to my benefit since I don't have much more latency than my peers on average.

Phone calls are just terrible when you try to convey complex information. Just recently had that issue with a business deal where it only became clear that we were not on the same page w.r.t. some important details after I put things into writing after an IRL meeting and several follow-up calls. The lesson from this is always to follow up with a summary e-mail, and to avoid anything more complex than a simple yes/no or maybe arranging a time and date by telephone.

Depends on what info I need. For most colleagues I'll just need some quick non-emotional information to do my job. Calling them up just takes up time.

Same goes for clients calling about an issue and trying to stay on the line while I fix it. It's just inconvenient in that context.

Hearing someone is great when I need to discuss some opinions. Or when you really need live interaction.

I don't understand why businesses don't use text messaging services exclusively. It's asynchronous and convenient, everything is recorded in writing, privacy and encryption are now standard features, we can have helpful automation that isn't a pain to interface with... It should be possible to do everything over text message.

> I will literally miss extremely important business opportunities because I put off calling someone for too long.

They will also miss important opportunities because they refuse to adapt.

> I don't understand why businesses don't use text messaging services exclusively.

You miss so much context when communicating in text.

Being able to hear the tone of someone's voice and quickly course correct when they are headed the wrong direction is invaluable for many things.

That said, I agree that for many situations text is very convenient. I am very happy every time I need to contact customer support and find they have a chat service available.

In my opinion, text is a great way to start almost all interactions. Being able to upgrade from that to voice is super helpful in many cases. Screenshare is also great for a lot of things.

And yet, it's probably the top medium for flirting and establishing romantic relationships...

I would almost speculate that's precisely because of the limited bandwidth that text provides.

When starting a relationship, one of the most important things at first is to "not come on too strong". The other party misses out on all your social cues and tells, which probably makes the exchange feel less vulnerable.

Further, since you know hardly anything about the other person at the start of a relationship, text lets you conveniently project your own emotions onto the other person without their tone getting in the way.

> The other party misses out on all your social cues and tells, which probably makes the exchange feel less vulnerable.

This is precisely why Tinder never worked out for me. Not seeing someone truly react to what your saying, just the filtered reply to it. Every conversation felt stale and awkward.

Because asynchronous communication takes a long time and often misses important emotional information transmitted via voice.

I am not a slow writer, but for many things I prefer to have a phone call as I find it significantly easier and quicker to clear up any potential misunderstandings.

I get that there are people that prefer text over voice and I do try to accomodate depending on preference, but if I have to have a proper conversation that may get a bit technical its simply quicker to call.

When conversing business matters, I don’t need to convey emotional information. The biggest advantage asynchronous text communication gives is I don’t have to waste time on hold. The next is that I have a record of who said what.

Bingo. The only instance where I prefer phone calls over text-based communication methods is when I just want to talk about nothing with family members who live far away and who I haven't talked to in a long time, just so I could hear their voice. For anything functional, I prefer text-based methods all the way for a multitude of reasons. Having full logs of the conversation to reference later on is a huge boon when it comes to avoiding misunderstandings and getting things done.

Easy. It’s a low fidelity, moderately effective means of communication that is in writing.

Talking and making a deal or agreement to be formalized in a long form is clear to all parties.

I'm in exactly the same boat. 40 years old and hate phone calls. But recently I've started to learn that the reason I hate them is because it always feels like I have to "prepare" for them and that's something I'm putting on myself. two things have started to change the way I think about them: 1) being in a call centre job where someone made it policy to stop reading the ticket before calling. this made it feel less important to have all the answers before calling and taught me that my preparation was only effective about 30% of the time. it also taught me how to politely stall or think out loud - the person on the other end in almost all cases is fine with the fact that you are human and don't know the answers immediately. 2) when I left that job I found my way into a completely different role, but one where my manager was a big proponent of making calls when things weren't working. For example if you've sent email after email waiting for someone, pick up the phone and call them - it triggers a completely different response. It's like they remember you're another human and not just a task to be done. You can quickly clarify any concerns or questions they have, and it genuinely helps move things forward. Couple this with lesson one, and not overthinking what I'm going to say it's made a big difference. I still hate calling, but between those two lessons I've become much less hesitant to pick up the phone because it can really change the course of a relationship or interaction.

I can relate. I had a pretty significant stutter growing up. Nothing, and I mean nothing, I hated more than having to pick up the phone. I always made it a point to be as far away from the dreaded phone as I possibly could (just so that I wouldn't be expected to pick it up when I was nearer to it than everyone else) when inside the house. Once my little sister figured out that I had this weird speech impediment, she would run up to the phone every time she heard it ring. My parents wanted me to face my fears - they meant well - but man, what a horrifying experience that would be ! The ceremony I had to put on just to utter the word 'hello' still gives me nightmares. I've long since grown out of my stutter but talking over the phone still isn't something I look forward to.

Yesterday I did a Discord voice hangout with the folks I normally co-work with. It went off pretty well, I got to hike outside while talking to them.

It does have its limits, though. Everyone's voices get filtered through the system with the usual dropouts, zombie connections, feedback issues and equipment variations making it so that some people are heard more clearly than others.

But as a measure for connecting without physical presence it's a godsend, and a group chat can be less structured than a meeting or phone call. Set a rough starting time, let people hang out in the room, and things happen. Not the same things that happen in person, but it's enough.

I used to love phone calls and called my friends all the time, pre 2000. Since then moved to Japan (so for a while no one to call) and texting or messaging became more expected. I now make probably less than a call a month. I miss the conversation and connection. When I do call I usually message first "Ok to call?"

On the other hand I went back to the USA for 2 weeks recently and within the first 15 minutes of installing my USA sim I got a robocall. I continued to get several a day the entire 2 weeks I was there. Never gotten a robocall in Japan.

I bought an simple mobile phone to make more phone calls. It works when I use that device since texting is harder and takes time its easier to call.

So you just offload the annoyance to the other person who has to drop what they are doing to answer your call

You can make the other person happy by calling them. Its oneself who may think its disturbing for the other. I am sure most people have slack messages coming all the time and that is not disturbing. One can in the same manner answering phone calls, if one do not have time to talk one can say that you are busy.

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