The end of phone calls: why young people have silenced their ringtones | Hacker News Reader

The end of phone calls: why young people have silenced their ringtones

theguardian.com

53 pointspseudolus78 comments

Well, yeah. This happened to my generation as well. It's not limited to Gen Zers and the younger generation.

The only reason it didn't happen sooner was because SMS prices were nuts ($0.20 a text at one point![1])

That all changed with the advent of data plans and non-sms messaging services. Once those two things came together there was no way for a telcom to keep charging through the nose.

With spam callers ringing off the hook now, it's no wonder why everyone just texts now-a-days. All my calls go straight to the google answering service if they are from unknown numbers. In the past year, maybe 10 of them have been legitimate (out of literally 100s!).

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/the-rising-cost-of-texting/

I don't know if this is my personal bubble, but I've had my phone on vibrate-only for nearly 20 years, and I think some of my friends back then did that as well.

It's not because I consider calls useless, though, but because most of the time I'll notice the vibration (most environments are quiet), and I find the vibration less disturbing in most environments than a ringtone. If I don't happen to notice the vibration (could happen e.g. while walking), rather few calls are so important that they couldn't be returned later on.

Bonus points for being less disturbing in case I happen to forget to silence the phone in situations that warrant that. I of course still make it a point to make it completely silent if I go somewhere that really requires that, but in most situations vibrate-only allows for worrying less.

I mentioned this on another HN thread, but I personally have my default ringtone set to a 0.1s mp3 of silence I made once. I then gave everyone in my address book group a real ringtone. Pretty much anyone in there I actually care if they call. All others can leave a message.

As for the parent post's preference for SMS. Most people I know are on XMPP (well. basically google hangouts), Telegram, Signal.. I'm not a fan of the multitude of walled gardens that the chat world has become, but SMS is pretty limiting and still not guaranteed to be free. There's 2 people I still talk with on SMS - the rest are on more featureful chat clients. I also do get a considerable amount of SMS spam, unfortunately.

Oh, also, I use google voice for my SMS 'cause my main plan does charge for SMS - I don't particularly care about this since no one I know really uses it anyway, and the few who do are easy to redirect to google voice.

Genius! Doing the silent ringtone now, well done!

> With spam callers ringing off the hook now

It’s gotten really bad for me in the last few months. I get at least 5 spam calls per day, starting at 7:30am.

Most of the calls are from real estate companies/agents who have the wrong number and are trying to reach the owner of some property. Around 80-90% of the calls are from area codes in Texas (have no idea why, I’ve never has anything to do with that state).

A major thing that’s overlooked in the phone spam discussion is the fact that when people have to deal with medical issues, especially chronic/ongoing ones, they need to allow calls from unknown callers. Doctors offices often have multiple phone numbers and it’s not realistic to have them all on the allow-list. It gets worse when you realize that the people most likely to have health issues (old age) are the same ones most likely to fall for the scams.

When looking at it this way, one can see that it’s pretty tragic that we’ve allowed this amazing communication system to decay to such a level that people just hate to use it now.

My doctor's surgery is a literal unknown caller, they don't send any caller ID at all.

My doctor's office, and their whole medical network, uses MyChart. All appointments, appointment updates, notices, lab results, prescription refill requests, etc. are handled via MyChart. The doctor's office never calls.

>> A major thing that’s overlooked in the phone spam discussion is the fact that when people have to deal with medical issues, especially chronic/ongoing ones, they need to allow calls from unknown callers. Doctors offices often have multiple phone numbers and it’s not realistic to have them all on the allow-list. It gets worse when you realize that the people most likely to have health issues (old age) are the same ones most likely to fall for the scams.

> My doctor's office, and their whole medical network, uses MyChart. All appointments, appointment updates, notices, lab results, prescription refill requests, etc. are handled via MyChart. The doctor's office never calls.

That's wont help an old person who isn't very comfortable with computers.

It's also not much use for me, since I kinda hate fighting with everyone's stupid websites, and usually opt for phone calls and paper mail. I'd rather use natural language to relay my requests to a computer operator who's job it is to know their system (or an expert that can field my questions), than to deal with it myself.

I know a lot of folks in their 70's using MyChart. Those old folks kinda have this whole "computer thing" figured out! MyChart also has an IM built into it so you can ask generic questions. You can even setup Telehealth appointments to go over results with your doctor if you live a ways away from the office. Very convenient.

> I know a lot of folks in their 70's using MyChart.

"I know a lot" != "all" or perhaps even "most".

It's a good thing to keep in mind that whatever computer-heavy solution that works for you may not work at all for many people.

There was like 3 sentences to that article that were actually useful news. The rest of it is written like an 8 year old full of sugar and caffeine and trying to "meme" like the cool kids.

Beyond that, yes. I'm significantly over this demographic specified, but my phone is on mute permanently. It's never set to ring loudly unless its a very special circumstance. I also use silence unknown calls (iOS). It's really hard to get a hold of me via the phone. My work phone goes direct to voicemail specifying to email me instead.

One thing to keep in mind that assists in this change, more recently, is the explosion of smart-watch-like devices. If you've got Android Wear, Fitbit or Apple Watch - your wrist vibrates you and tells you who's calling. Very hard to miss and no need to ring.

This is from a weird section of the Guardian that always has articles on this style. I think very few are useful for discussing.

They probably serve as some amusement in the printed paper.

I'm old and I hate phone calls. 99.2 pct of the time, when my phone rings, it is spam. I'm absolutely tired of it. I really want to smack[0] anyone who falls for spam because they make it all worth it to the spammer.

[0] Not condoning violence, this is just the level of my frustration with it all at this point.

When the spiffingbrit and Jim Browning fall to phone scam tricks you know we are in deep trouble....

I've compromised - Calls from numbers in contact groups get custom ringtones, but the default ringtone is just a silent .wav file.

In the last year or so, I've been seeing "Scam Likely" on scammer calls as well.

Just the same, I'd love a "dismiss with prejudice" option when I receive a call: no voicemail, just disconnect, mostly because these clowns inevitably leave a voicemail.

Isn't that just declining the call? It'll only go to voicemail if you let it ring out?

In my experience, declining the call sends it straight to voicemail.

No - there needs to be a way to report back to the carrier that this was a spammer. The carriers need to start blocking them.

No. Your call goes to its "Call Forward – No Answer" destination, which by default is your carrier's voicemail system (it can be changed through some obscure keypad code).

I have a personal policy of actively sending people to voicemail if I can't or don't want to talk to them, mostly because I feel like making them wait 30s to find that out is a little callous.

Most people who fall for spam and scams are vulnerable. Its better to be mad at people who make money preying on people with dementia, or by threatening scared people ("Hello I'm from the IRS.."), than it is to be mad at the people who get tricked.

Because most of my calls are telemarketers and scams, I did this years ago. My message has been for the longest time, "I do not check these messages, please email me at **@gmail.com"

I would have probably checked my messages more if I had search to text translation of my messages and it wasn't an extra fee.

And for the same reasons (spam, "newsletters", etc), I know some people who are abandoning email as well, and instruct people to contact them via a particular chat app or Twitter.

The best ways to contact me are basically ordered by how many of the messages I receive are automated, whether spam or not. WhatsApp is the best way (0% automated messages), then text (maybe 75-80% automated?), then phone (something like 95-99% automated), then email (~99.99% automated, and that's just the stuff that gets through gmail's spam filters)

More machines talking to me = I'm less likely to check messages unless I'm expecting something. If you email me without giving me a heads-up first, there is nearly a 0% chance I'll see it. The only medium where the chance of my actually receiving your message the first try is over 90% is Whatsapp. I used to work to keep the % of garbage down in my email, but realized at some point that I was receiving so few emails I wanted that weren't just transactional messages from a machine, that it was pointless (I can just search for transactional emails if I need them, because I'm expecting them and know where they should be from, so inbox clutter barely affects that use at all).

When I'm job hunting or expecting to deal with banks, the govt, or other unavoidable gargantuan institutions, I answer my phone. Otherwise it's on silent all the time and I am not notified about voicemails. My family and friends know how to contact me.

Maybe people will start answering phonecalls again if SHAKEN/STIR makes caller ID accurate and users can systematically block telemarketers ublock style, but I am not optimistic on that front.

I suspect they will have to start verifying caller origins or people will stop using phone services. If there are online communication channels that do a better job of verification they will win market share. Phone companies will become a data pipe supplier. There isn't a lot of money in that, outside of monopolistic practices.

I really wish there were a PKI system for this stuff.

I.e., my phone has a set of public keys, and it will only ring if someone with a valid private key calls me.

If I want someone to be able to call me, I generate a new key pair and provide them with the private key. If anything sketchy starts happening, I forget that public key.

Or, perhaps more practically, use something like asterisk to prompt them for an extension when calling me. My extensions are 10 digit numbers, and I whenever I give my phone number to someone, the number includes a unique, hard-to-guess extension.

I never liked phone calls, but the trouble back in the day was telcos. They made text messages too expensive (especially using the character "õ" in them). Calling was cheaper.

Eventually telcos relented and text messaging became reasonably priced. At the same time/before that, internet based messaging on phones took over.

Why would you want to do a phone call if you don't need immediate contact with someone? How often do you actually need immediate contact with someone?

I like a phone call to hear the voice of the person I am talking to, and I tend to prefer it over text. With an actual phone line it was even more fun due to the much lower latency.

Now it seems like there is large (200ms+) delay on almost all phone calls - it makes it really hard to have a conversation even.

Business is still done in large part over the phone - when you need an answer soonish (and/or know that you’re not going to get an answer when you need it), phone calls are about the only thing that works reliably.

Latency is infuriating. Bluetooth is particularly bad and calls where both ends are using Bluetooth are pretty miserable. It seems the norm these days that net calls with earphones and wired networking are lower latency than cellular calls.

I like phone calls to discuss lengthy topics.

Typing everything out sucks, especially if it's on my phone.

How did õ affect SMS? Count as multiple characters?

Normally an SMS was up to 160 characters long. If you wrote a longer text than that then it would be a separate SMS and the telco would charge you extra. Because Õ is only really used in Estonian it's not part of the set of characters for a standard SMS. This meant that the presence of Õ in an SMS would make the max length of an SMS 70 characters (less than half).

If you have a complicated issue that you need to resolve where the options branch deeply, or that person has been ghosting you on other methods[0], a phone call can clarify things very quickly.

If I have anything that is even moderately complicated to resolve, I will call customer service. Even though the wait times are brutal, I tend to get my problem solved faster that way.

[0]: what is to stop that person from ghosting you on the phone? Redial. Then curiosity will kill the cat.

I wanted to ring a pub to ask a question, the number that came up on my search for the place was a mobile number(uk prefix 07)

I rang it and it went straight to answer phone, I hung up, but I immediately recieved a text message saying something like - sorry we can't answer the phone, please text us your question,

I texted my question and about 1minute later got a detailed response.

I think I prefer this instead of voice calls

My local pizza parlor has gone to this system. You just text them your order. They text back confirming your order and telling you when it will be ready. Simple.

I'd really like to have a proper answering machine for mobile: where the caller is audible whilst leaving the message, so I can choose whether to pick up (unlike voicemail). Audible calls would be fine at home; on the go it could be limited to a headset.

I've looked into this before, and even hacked around a little with the freesmartphone.org stack back in the day. I've switched from OpenMoko to PinePhone since then, and haven't taken a proper look at its telephony stack yet.

From Googling around, it appears that there were a few Symbian apps for this; and that Android's permission model doesn't allow any app to automatically answer calls or access their audio.

PS: Based on the number of siblings talking about spam/scams, it sounds like that's a real problem in the US. Thankfully I've never had a problem with that on my UK mobile, despite having the same number for 22 years.

Ringtones were the stupidist thing ever back in the mid '00s. Every student in a class basically had their custom ringtone to show off. It was a status thing. Also just having a phone that could do it was like showing you had the LATEST phone. RAZR phones. Now since all phones are ubiquitous in features, it's really just seen wholly as obnoxious (which it always was, but now accepted as obnoxious by all).

Counterpoint: now that nobody has a custom ring tone, all the iphones sound the same so you have to check if you were the one who got a call.

I actually think this is a shame. Phone calls are way better for catching up with people than messaging. You mostly have everyone’s attention and there’s a defined start and end to the conversation.

Yes, there’s video calls now, but they’re not automatically better. Dealing with cameras, lighting, grooming ahead of time, and bad compression just gets in the way of a casual conversation.

Is it just me? I've always hated phone calls, even back in the 80's when that was literally the only way to talk to somebody who wasn't physically in the same room as you. Voice calls combine the worst of real-time interactions with the worst of remote interactions.

I'm the opposite, I love the death of phone calls. Phone calls being synchronous and forcing you to pay attention to them immediately is incredibly annoying. Just let it go to voicemail? Sure, but then just text me.

I hate phone calls. Just despise. In part, because it requires someone to stop at least part of what they are doing and spend time talking to me.

Messaging? The conversation can go on around other things. Let me know you are playing games and I can set my expectations for responses. Don't get back right away? Well, it probably isn't important and you know I thought about you, and you are free to get back to me when convenient.

When my spouse and I lived on different sides of the atlantic (pre marriage), we could have discussions that transcended sleep and work schedules. Other folks, the discussion just ends, sometimes informally but sometimes in similar ways to phone calls.

I hate video calls too, but I use them occasionally for family since I now live across an ocean, but only if they insist.

Phone calls require real time audio processing I’m extremely bad at. No matter what I do, my brain won’t stay focused on a call and I constantly miss words and sometimes entire sentences.

Video calls are usually better because I can lip-read to some degree. I miss less. Text is the best, because I can re-read something that didn’t process correctly.

if voice calls were the only option perhaps your ability to deal with them would be stronger? its interesting that with the advent of tech, things that were required for participating in society are now suddenly impossible for so many

Highly unlikely. No amount of running a cash register improved my ability to do math in my head. No amount of “trying harder” improved my focus. My issues stem from parts of my brain not working.

What exactly am I supposed to do with a phone call?

(a) I cannot trust that it is who it claims to be, due to the last 2-4 years of caller-id / scam attacks

(b) I can't authenticate many shared secrets with the caller because most of my life details are probably now exposed via data breaches (and thus "open secrets")

So no, there's no reason for me to believe anything a telephone call claims to be from or what the voice on the other end of the phone says they are. Why pick up at all?

Authentication of legitimate official business is, in my opinion, the big problem of this decade.

If I had to guess, >90% of phone calls are spam/scams or redundant information I received already over another channel. If they're one of the very few people in my contacts I'll likely pick up, or if I have a reason to be monitoring phone calls (i.e. job searching) I'll pick up. Regardless, my phone is always on silent or vibrate.

Even in the above mentioned d exception cases though, more people are calling me from other services such as Discord, Snapchat, Messenger, Teams, etc.

99% of all the calls I get are from marketers or even worse, robot marketers. Everyone who actually knows me and talks to me regularly knows better to use other channels.

I get a ton of calls in what I assume is Mandarin (maybe Cantonese?) and I have no clue why. My best guess is non-targeted spam or extortion attempts.

I had a chinese coworker listen and translate one. They're spam. If you speak a specific language and get a call like that, you'll probably assume its actually for you. Or at least your more likely to think that.

Now if only big legacy corporations like banks, airlines, etc. had better text/chat/email support, 99% of us could probably deprecate phone calls entirely in our lives. Even my 70 year old parents have embraced messaging. Unfortunately calling some 800 number and waiting on hold is still the status quo here.

I work for a large electrical utility in the U.S. and I hear you! We have a good handle on sending texts but we're not very good at receiving them. We've recently started using Lex on AWS to manage two-way conversations and our customers are loving it. They don't want to call overwhelmed call centers during an outage and be on hold hearing "your call is important to us" for 30 minutes and further draining their cell phone battery that they need for emergency use.

Phone calls are super rude. You demand that somebody else drop whatever they are doing and answer you right now. On top of that, if the person you are calling is with somebody, not only do you interrupt the person you are calling, but you interrupt all the people that person is with.

I mean I still use them because sometimes it is the easist way to accomplish something, but no wonder people are putting their phones on mute.

Because it also silences all other notifications too. It’s pretty weird that anyone can just interrupt your life with a call.

I don't think it's obviously weird. Before the age of asynchronous telecommunication, interrupting each other's lives was the only way to communicate at all. You could equally consider it strange that nowadays everyone expects all social communication to be mediated by an electronic escrow service.

Not really. Letters used to be delivered (at least around here) by sliding them through a slot in your front door. Letters are older than the phone.

Letters are asynchronous telecommunication :)

You wouldn't write a letter to someone in the same town, anyway. For most of human history, if you wanted to talk to someone, you went round to their house. Most people weren't even literate.

Another aspect is that audio quality of GSM calls is just awful.

Especially when calling any business, it sounds like it's been converted between 8KHz PCM and 32kbps MP3 back and forth a dozen times, with a second-long lag. I can't understand what anyone is saying, they can't hear me, and the whole ordeal is mentally draining.

My partner set my phone to a silent ring tone, then a different one for people in my contact list.

This is great, but can cause issues when waiting for calls from businesses (which sometimes have multiple outgoing numbers.) Waiting for the Vet to call back with test results and missing the first one wasn't fun.

Even on vibrate it's too much for me. I have had my phone on "do not disturb" for 2 years now. Every time I see someone calling me I have an anxiety attack.

Careful with burn out kids, it can fuck you up in such a bad way it feels irreparable and hopeless.

The ringing is important for a reason not mentioned in this article. My primary use of calling is to locate the phone that my wife or kids have misplaced -- if they didn't have a ring tone then we couldn't easily find their missing phones!

Why there isn't technology that allows us to see who is calling? Like email. I don't answer calls any more because of the amount of spam calls I get. Seeing who is calling would solve this problem.

Are you thinking of caller Id? Admittedly it's not perfect, but it's there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID

On second reading of the parent, I am wondering if I am missing an `\s`

Its spoofable, right? I think thats the current problem, you can't really trust caller id to be accurate.

Sure, but so then is email. I don't know if there is a perfect way to automate out of this problem, just providing the phone user a set of tools to judge whether to answer a call or not.

My own personal tool is: unless I am expecting a call from a strange number, callers not in my contact list are silenced automatically and go straight to voicemail. If it's important, like a relative calling from someone else's phone in an emergency situation or say, my bank calling about a fraudulent credit card charge, they will leave a message I can review. Especially with the voicemail transcription tools I get with my phone and provider, its pretty easy to delete the 'You won a free cruise' or 'IRS is suing you for fraud' messages.

The issue is, if you have a local area code, you get spam calls from adjacent numbers all the time. I have a Seattle area code due to living there many years ago. I don’t know anyone in Seattle, so spam is immediately identifiable.

I just send everything to voice mail if I don’t recognize the number. If it’s important enough, they’ll leave a message. Otherwise, well ….

Lay pundit X-ennial's take:

Because old people did shit all in regulating spammers for the last 20 years.

This might just be the most hard to read article I've ever seen.

interesting point. even with the rise of mobile phones i remember hearing more phones ringing back when it was first introduced

do people really just text their families instead of talking on the phone?

Yes. We even have a family group chat that the kids and their spouses are part of! We stay connected all day every day even though we're hundreds of miles apart.

that is bizarre to me. i text my family but it is a very different experience compared to catching up over the phone. i usually call my dad every week or 2 to talk for an hour or so. one day you might not be able to hear their voices anymore

We still get together 2-3 times per year. So we don't use texting in lieu of physically meeting, we use it in lieu of calling. If we are in the mood to actually talk to one another then we'll use FaceTime.

this "article" looks like it was written by a fifth grader.

I always used to turn my phone completely off since the early 1990s. Now I only have one because some financial institutions require me to have a mobile phone, otherwise, I would not own any sort of phone. Phone calls bug me. Texts bug me. Emails bug me. I keep my phone in a Faraday bag, leave it buried way down in a desk drawer. I never see it. It's in the Faraday bag so that no signals go in or out. On the very rare occasions that I MUST use it for those financial institutions, I bring it out for a minute or two to get the pass code. I have to spend $180 per year on something that I use maybe 5 minutes per year.

Everything else I do on my VOIP. So I only check stuff out very rarely. People can leave me voice mail and texts there. And just send my email to my desktop, too.

And, no way am I going to allow Google and every other company they sell my information to let them know where exactly I am every minute of the day. That's just gross. I know I can't be 100% private these days, but I do what I can.

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