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Comment by hrdwdmrbl | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately many people now strongly dislike receiving unexpected phone calls. You may (i have) genuinely upset some people by calling them. Yes, I’m rolling my eyes too, but that’s how they feel

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That was my first thought as well, and I am one of those people. I strongly dislike being called, especially unexpectedly, and much prefer a quick text message to maybe meet up in person, if the opportunity presents itself (e.g. if one of us happens to be in the town of the other one)

At this point in my life if someone I actually know irl calls out of the blue, it induces anxiety as it's a very non-zero chance someone has died...

That’s the reason I started reaching out to old friends. A friend had died and I knew no one else would tell them. One I even had to track down through email and ask for their new phone number. But now that I’m in regular contact I find calling easier and I don’t have worst-case-scenario fears anymore.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons calls out of the blue are mostly reserved for emergencies in my family and friend group. Texts eliminate that factor, and are more polite. A phone call represents immediacy / urgency ("this merits interrupting whatever you might be doing right now"). A text like "hey are you free for a quick call?" lets the recipient pivot from what they're doing and engage on their terms. IMHO it's more considerate.

You're about one step away from sending an email to ask if you can send a text to ask if you can make a phone call.

It's not "more considerate" - you can ignore a phone call the same you can ignore a text. It's merely asking other people to optimize for you convenience only. That's perfectly fine to ask for, but it doesn't help with making friendships easy.

Disagree with this. Sending a text saying "Can we call when you're free" is more considerate of the other persons time than a random call. It sounds like you're trying to make it sound absurd by your 'send an email to send a text', rather than focus on _why_ the text makes sense.

Thanks, yes, exactly. (I didn't respond to parent bc borderline trolling.)

FWIW, when I do make the occasional unexpected call, I make sure to start the call with "sorry to interrupt, everyone's fine, got a sec?" or similar.

Contra the other commenter's assertion, phone calls to friends and family are typically NOT as easily ignored as texts, precisely because they're not screened. Close friends and family leave themselves open to direct contact largely to account for potential emergencies. Their phone is going to ring and/or buzz, and (for at least some number of seconds) they won't know why. During which time they might reasonably fear it's terrible news. So you're starting the interaction by having interrupted and scared them. For no good reason. Failure to understand this is maybe just a sign of immaturity. Live long enough to be on the receiving end of such calls and it'll hopefully register.

texts and emails are asynchronous. If they want to email me to call me, sure. I'd find it weird, but it's just as accessible as a text.

>It's merely asking other people to optimize for you convenience only.

no, it's compromise. Maybe they're free right now. maybe they are swamped all day with work or errands. Calling out of the blue is asking people to optimize for my convenience.

Man, this is the opposite for me. I'm filled with a great sense of relief any time my phone rings and I recognize the number...

100% this. Apart from my SO and scammers, no one randomly calls me. If my brother would call me out of the blue I'd assume the worst. (Also, the one random call I vividly remember getting the past years is my mom calling me to let me know my grandfather unexpectedly passed away).

It's just needlessly anxiety-inducing. Not to mention it's a major inconvenience to interrupt someone randomly for a chat.

For my demographic (late millenial), calls imply urgency. Like, if I see a call from a friend out of the blue I'm worried something dire happened.

Texting is fine. We can schedule a call or meetup from there. But life as is is already so spontaneous, I don't need even more stuff to come up.

>But life as is is already so spontaneous

Is it? I think the exact opposite is true. Most people's life is a walking calendar. these days if someone can't "schedule" something they're losing their minds. Life was spontaneous when people didn't monitor every second of their day, when someone walked up to your house and asked you a question to your face, there wasn't a "I'll reply in ten minutes when I'm comfortable" button.

We're living in a comfort obsessed society where, when you can't run away and plan your reply, people have a panic attack. Dating for young people is terrible because it's about as spontaneous as a legal appointment.

Spam phone calls have become so horrendously common here in the US (multiple a day) that I just keep my mobile on do not disturb 24/7 with exceptions for those in my core contact group. Maybe I'll miss a call or two that actually had substance, but I'd rather be slightly more isolated than constantly annoyed. Find me on various online platforms with text chat, voice or video if you really want to reach me. Or don't.

Ridiculous how that ticked up in frequency (at least for me) after the last Potus election.

Did you get laid off over the year? My spams always skyrocket on a job search. Just shows you what they are really doing with your resume (despite my LinkedIn profile being 15 years old and mostly updated. It's not hard to get my resume).

Also, AI acceleration the last few years. most of the calls I do answer are clearly fake voices trying to sound real, as opposed to some TTY.

For me it's been down the last couple years, compared to a surge under the previous president. That means he's responsible, right? Or it could be I bought a house and financial institutions leak phone numbers like a colander

It cooled under Biden for me, but who am I to say. I wouldn’t be surprised if current admin stop prosecuting against the spam callers. Some times these outfits are connected to politicians. Have you seen the 3-part documentary, Telemarketers?

Bill 936 which would have required 1:1 expressly written consent to call was struck down in the 11th circuit court of appeals right before it was set to go into effect in Jan 2025 [1].

Trump flipped the 11th circuit by making a number of judge appointments in Jan 2020 [2]. As you correctly guessed, these two things are not unrelated.

1. https://www.consumerfinancialserviceslawmonitor.com/2025/09/...

2. https://www.wiley.law/newsletter-Trump-Flips-Eleventh-Circui...

Thank you! I knew it was connected some how. Too coincidental to happen as soon as he was in office again.

Same here. Spam calls have really picked up these last couple of years, I also get multiple per day. Here in Switzerland you need to register with your ID to get a mobile phone number, but somehow these spam callers still manage to appear to be calling from a mobile phone, which used to be a strong signal for “not spam”. It’s gotten so bad that I completely ignore unknown numbers, except if I’m expecting a call. This has its own downsides of course. Tragedy of the commons. :-( Maybe call screening can help, but at least on iOS it isn’t available yet here.

One alternative is voice recordings on whatsapp!

This is the worst: people who use them hate the receiver

So what?

There are also heaps of people that love getting phonecalls, or love to get a nice voice message.

There's a whole other world of people that call and enjoy calling!!!!

Why let a subset of people rule your behaviour towards others not in that subset?

When people call, I try to encourage that. Unless I'm busy or they're too needy, so I don't answer.

I am especially encouraging towards anyone that struggles with text messages (one of my oldest friends was illiterate, and I've got other friends that would call themselves dyslexic).

I undermine that by messaging when I should call, because I like the written word.

N=1 here but I love getting out of the blue phone calls from the couple of friends that do it. If I can't pick up, or am too busy to chat, I just swipe up on of the prebaked "sorry, can't chat now" SMS responses.

It's them who initiate 90% of the calls too, and nobody cares.

many people are now unable to discuss personal things at all, as I have a small business that is growing, I have interviewed hundreds of people seeking employment, and flat out refuse to even talk about resumes or past qualifications, as what counts in this case is an ability to comunicate verbaly about a combination of technical specifications, and then the mundane details of achiving them, so a verbal interview,that focuses on there full skill sets, and youth, mentors, and other influenced, many choke and hand up, sputter and repeat the speel they have practiced, one in 50 can roll with it cheerfully.

I wonder what is driving this. I too sense that people are really guarded these days. For me, I work remotely and it's hard to build true rapport through Slack.

Lack of barrier breaking. Fewer people call and talk outside of slack so it becomes the norm to not talk outside of slack. When you do it seems weird. Break the norm.

Why would I open up on a company chat? I don't want my life on record to be used against me by HR later on. I'll tell some friendly coworkers about vacation details, but certainly not on a paper trail.

I feel that's more an issue in a job interview. You want to use every minute to make yourself look good, and the general "wisdom" is that employers don't care about your hobbies or social life or passions. They want someone to do the job right now.

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