I could just as well not have any phone functionality if it has internet.
At this point I even don't pick up calls from numbers that I don't recognize or weren't scheduled beforehand.
It's now rude to just call someone on the phone without asking permission first.
It's the equivalent of dropping unannounced at their place.
Which used to be a normal thing - at least where I live and especially if you were young. At the same time, politely telling someone you’re busy, it’s not a good time, etc was also acceptable and normal.
Most people that I know only use calls for time sensitive/urgent needs. Most other things, aside from chatting with family etc, are really best handled with a text. For whatever reason the culture around phones has shifted to "don't force people to drop whatever they're doing and respond to a call unless it is actually necessary".
Seems to work out well and fairly straightforward, I'd imagine I'm not the only one that follows this flow.
If you call me, I'll probably hear the phone ring, and can either answer it or check for a message, whereas if you send me a text, there's a decent chance I won't even notice its existence for some hours. Better hope that "urgent communication need" isn't too urgent...
Anyone feel like businesses small and large aren’t getting this? If I need a plumber or want to apply for a mortgage the first step is always a phone call. I don’t get it.
I’ve tried texting local businesses but it only occasionally works.
At first it was only small businesses like the nearby cafeteria sending the lunch menu, then it was fast food deliveries, some banks. Last year some state institutions made the switch.
I'm not sure about a mortgage, since that requires more paperwork. But most of a car insurance, car loan, personal loan, new internet phone line, can be done via WhatsApp.
The local digital signature law still doesn't work though, so at certain point of the process, the company sends an official or someone from a private post company to get the real signatures on paper and confirm that the ID card matches the application.
The issue is imposing yourself on somebody else's attention.
I've literally never heard of this. So much of my day-to-day work and personal communication would pretty much never happen if I had to ask for permission every time before I called someone. Is it a millennial thing?
Phones (telephones, that is) and phone numbers are exactly for spontaneous voice communication. If someone doesn't want to be called out of the blue, they can choose to not give their number out to people. Or for texting say, hey, here's my number but I'm so busy that texting is usually better for me. And with today's smartphones that tell you who is calling (or at least, whether or not it's someone you know), it's _way_ easier to decide whether or not to answer a call than it was two or three decades ago where the phone just rang and that was all you got.
99% of the time it could be handled better via a text or email, which allows both parties to answer when they can.
It is infuriating when I have to spend 30 minutes of my day trying to phone people back and getting voice mail so that they can tell me something that was best put in a simple text.
>> 99% of the time it could be handled better via a text or email, which allows both parties to answer when they can.
I think it depends very much on your relationship with the person with whom you are communicating and the conversation itself.
The "bandwidth" of communication of a voice call is much higher than a text or email because of voice inflection, voice tone, and other audible factors.
For example, you might be able to immediately tell that the person you called is sick and adjust your plans or request, but a text or email would not tell you that.
A voice call also allows for quick clarifications that could take several rounds of texts or emails. This means that a 30 second phone call could be faster than several rounds of texts or emails spaced over several hours.
A voice call is also better for more sensitive or urgent communication. Urgent or sensitive news conveyed over text or email can feel impersonal or even uncaring.
For asynchronous one-way messages, I agree that texts or emails are better since they do not interfere and allow each side to handle responses asynchronously.
>> It is infuriating when I have to spend 30 minutes of my day trying to phone people back and getting voice mail so that they can tell me something that was best put in a simple text.
I completely agree. I HATE voice mail and have actually turned it off. People who know me and need a voice call can call back or try reaching me by text or email.
Yeah... You're the kind of person people wish would just text us.
Would you prefer to receive bad news by voice call or by text message?
Personally, I would prefer to receive bad news by voice call, but I am curious about what others prefer and why.
I don't see the 99%, more frequently it's meetings that can be replaced by emails. Some of my customers are fine sending an email or creating a ticket, and are able to tell me in writing what they want. Others, I'd say around half, can't clearly tell me what they want. Maybe they don't know, or they don't fully understand the problem
Either you send a few emails back and forth for a few days, trying to figure out what people want, wasting hours. Instead you can call the same people, and in less than 30 minutes have the job clearly defined. Then you still need to follow up via an email, so you have the clients OK in writing.
It's not a generational thing, it's down to how different people best communicate, and what situation you're currently facing. The clean and clear dismissal of phone call as a means of communication isn't productive. My dismissal of texts in professional settings might also not be super productive, but that's would mean that I have to give out my cellphone number to clients, and that's not really happening.
I don't think the argument is that voice communication is not useful. The only issue is unsolicited calls.
It may be more of a millennial thing but I've heard this from both younger (Gen Z) and older (Gen X) people as well. It does depend on the type of call. If I run a business then I'm not expecting my vendors/clients to pre-schedule a call but if a friend calls I assume it's an emergency or extremely time-sensitive. I regularly send and receive "Are you free to talk?" SMS/iMessage/Discord/etc messages and only initiate calls without first asking if it's something that just can't wait (or in the case where we are about to meet up, like calling to say I'm almost there or calling to find someone at an event we are both attending). The only exception to this "rule" is my parents who regularly call me out of the blue (I get a text ~20% of the time max to ask if I'm free).
I assure you, I did not give my number (or email) to the spammers who contact me multiple times a day.
I'm sure they got it from some combination of public databases and data breaches. Like a fingerprint, I can't easily change my contact info, so here we are.
I want the smartphone without the phone. Signal audio is often better quality anyway.
Aside: I want callers who aren't explicitly in my phone's contacts to solve an audio CAPTCHA before my phone accepts their text/call/voicemail. This would not affect family or friends, would provide a path for important calls like medical, financial, or government calls, and would significantly increase the cost of spam.
"Elder millennial" here. Didn't have a cell phone until college, and then it was a dumb phone.
Phone calls are my least favorite form of communication. Oddly enough, I'm fine with them in a business context, but personal? Don't call me unless someone's dying or I'm expecting a call from you. I will be annoyed otherwise. Either the person you're calling is ignoring all calls (phone silent and out of sight), or you're about to set off a blaring DEAL WITH THIS RIGHT THIS SECOND, DROP WHAT YOU'RE DOING alarm for them (even if it's on vibrate, still, that's what it is). It's like yelling "I need your attention this second!". So it should be important enough to warrant abruptly interrupting someone who may be in the middle of who-knows-what.
I felt very differently about this before cell phones. Yay! Someone called me! Now it's like, damnit, why are you being such a jerk by calling me when there's not something super-important and urgent going on? I think part of it's that home phones couldn't interrupt you everywhere at all times. Mostly just indoors, in your house.
I agree with you completely.
I started to feel the same way once texting and messaging became common. Having someone call you unexpectedly feels like the equivalent of someone saying "I don't care what it is that you're doing, talk to me right now." I know that's not actually what's going through people's minds, but it feels that way. It's like when someone asks you something over IM instead of over email, even though it isn't time sensitive.
I actually get a surge of anxiety because of this lol.
I absolutely love the transcription service for voicemails on iPhone because it means I can easily scan the contents of the messages of people who don't just text after a failed call.
No, it isn't. I'm also Polish and I'll be pissed at you if you call unexpectedly. Like all the other commenters said, a call is a huge interruption, completely uncalled for when there are IMs or even SMS available. Almost everyone I know in my circle understands it and doesn't call unless it's important.
> most of the time I do care more about them than whatever I was doing, because I can just resume what I was doing a few minutes later. Most stuff can be interrupted and resumed without a problem.
You're lucky to have that kind of work. In my case, most of what I'm doing can't be interrupted and restarted like that. And I'm already getting enough interruptions from my wife, kid, family and co-workers, who always have something urgent happening to them every day. I can't handle any more interrupts.
> If this was really important and more important than the thing my friend calls to me with I politely refuse to talk and offer a callback later.
I have a whole set of "quick response" SMS templates available on the incoming call screen, so I can tell you to go away in more or less polite terms, depending on who you are and how I feel.
That's an interesting perspective. I think that explains some people's behavior. I tend to think of IM as in please reply in the next day or so, and email as in please reply in the next week or two.
I'm always telling people to not say hi in an IM and then wait for me to reply, because if I'm busy I'm not going to reply until later, but then you might not be there, and if you had asked whatever you needed in the first message I could be answering it now
So, for a number of years now texting, Slack, or Messenger was the way to be clearer about the intention of only taking a moment of someone's time, which makes it more likely that they'll pay attention. I've been dismayed, as recently as this week, to see on shared screens a red Slack badge that has numbers in the hundreds.
What we really need is much, much better prioritization systems.
A few months later: Stop calling me! And make sure to slip a note in my mailbox before you even think about texting me!
I REALLY do not like this isolationist culture we're slowly building up to, at least in the U.S. Calling someone is the equivalent of showing up unannounced? I find that notion absurd on its face. Maybe there are some parallels but it stops pretty short.
I really wish we could rewind the time for this one. It was so amazing to call people spontaneously.
But it does sometimes feel like something bigger has changed.
When I was a kid, the house phone was almost _always_ in use at night and on the weekends. Various family members and friends called just to chat and catch up and BS about whatever was on the news. Birthday calls were placed and gratefully received. The teenagers in the house got in trouble for tying up the line all evening to talk with their friends even after having spent all day with them at school. Today that's all been replaced with texts and tweets and facebook likes and it makes me sad.
They still do this, it's just over FaceTime/Discord/Zoom/etc. Also I don't see the voice->text move as something really that terrible. I have a discord with my close friends and we've essentially left FB groups for this instead. We can all share stuff and consume it on our own timetables instead of having to drop everything and engage at the exact moment someone wants to share. We can always drop into voice/video/screen-share if needed, it's really ideal for me and my friends.
Analog life is quite the thing. The funny thing is my dad used to complain how phones have ruined physical interaction. He used to have friends just literally show up at the house and see if he is available to hang. He thought phones ended that lifestyle and now he is glued to FB. God help us all...
Slack added huddles recently to cut the friction to call someone. Phone lines before cell phones used to be like that - just call! Instant voice communication. So much better than text.
I feel like I am showing my age now :-)
Personally, I'd prefer a call to at least 50% of slack messages - any time a back and forth is required that could be addressed in a 30 second call but instead takes a slack chat spanning 10 min where you can't really do anything else because of the distraction.
I've tried to encourage people to phone me, including leaving my phone number is my slack status and asking people to consider phoning, but it wasnt really successful
Circa early 2000s we used to call them PDAs. I remember with fond memories my pocketPCs well before the iPhone was even a thing.
For everyone else, it's normal.
Know why phone calls don't need emojis? Because most of the time, it's much easier to communicate verbally.
Even at work using slack... sure, we communicate with text a lot of the time, but when shit needs to get done, someone starts a call.
I created a tiny website to give out to people asking why - https://no.phone.wtf
Is it? I think that norm varies a lot with different sections of culture. If it was universally rude, then it'd be damn silly that phones are all set up to be able to receive calls unsolicited, by default.
"Do not disturb" could be the default.
But normies don't work like that. To normies, a device is defined by the role it fills in your life. In this view, a computer is a device used for work: preparing documents, emails, spreadsheets, and presentations. Maybe programming or data analysis for scientific, engineering, or BI purposes. A phone is a social link: it connects you to the people you care about most. This has been true since before smartphones or even cellphones became commonplace: teenagers in the 80s craved their own landlines and their own phones, and even ordered custom phones like the ones with transparent cases, etc.
So inasmuch as smartphones serve the primary social function they continue to serve, which is to connect you with your social circles and facilitate communication with them, they will continue to be marketed as phones, not computers and not anything else -- even if they completely lose PSTN connectivity.