I get called like once or twice a week, and it’s usually something time sensitive or important. Always found people just flat out refusing to answer the phone crazy.
“A voice note is just like talking on the phone but better,” says Susie Jones, a 19-year-old student. “You get the benefits of hearing your friend’s voice but comes with no pressures so it’s a more polite way of communicating”.
Gross, voice notes are the worst of both worlds.
Text for things that are information critical, phone calls for things that are time critical.
Email for business (and keep the original chain going instead of starting a new one every time you think of something else to add!), text messages for associates, chat apps for friends and family.
I’ve actively told any friend that send me a voice note that if you want me to respond to you don’t send it as a voice note, I won’t listen to it. It requires me to put headphones in or play it on speaker, and neither of those are happening unless it’s important.
hard agree, voice messages are the worst of both worlds, you can’t look at it and get the gist of what’s said, and you have to deal with listening to it, while requiring more bandwidth to use.
I’ve told my friends instead of pressing the voice button, just press the speech to text button, I’m more likely to read a wall of text than listen to a voice message.
Yeah, voice notes are the “your solution to your problem is somewhere in the middle of this 20 minute long YouTube video that could have been a short forum post with some screenshots instead” of the communication world.
Jesus, it’s not just me! It seems like every answer I need is only found in a video format without labeled bookmarks/sections. I hate it so much. Give me a how-to with concise instructions and gifs, or give me death.
I can’t speak for others but as an older millennial, I grew up liking spending time on the phone with friends and loved ones. However in my adult life, I spent being anxious waiting for phone calls regarding job interviews and outcomes of them, and even being interviewed on some of them, including those without much notice. I also had to make calls to follow up things urgently or if I’m in trouble. As a result, I started to equate phone calls as mostly negative experiences.
I’ve been nervous of phoning people since long before cellphones were invented, precisely because it always seemed rude to make someone’s phone ring and demand a conversation when they’re in the middle of whatever they’re doing. It’s interesting to see more people coming to see it like this.
I don’t know if phone call spam is only an American thing or something. In my country (and most of Europe) that stuff is effectively banned and doesn’t really happen.
having proper bans in place do help, cutting number spoofing and rooting out local spam sources + barring voips that facilitate them means spam callers would have to connect internationally and cost more.
Eh. Gen-x here. I still have an hour long phonecall over signal with my best friend over signal two times a week or so.
In my teens I wasn’t too happy about making phonecalls either, but working on a helpdesk for a while sure cured that.
On the other hand, I live in a country with consumer protection, so robocalls are not a thing. And I’d strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger (and GDPR) those companies who attempt to poison and destroy my personal attention.
Like I said, they’re mostly scams. Warranty scams. Posing as “your bank” (which they, of course, don’t name). Etc. Legitimate companies follow the do not call list, since there are heavy penalties if they don’t.
Even worse, many of those scammy companies use the Do Not Call list as a list of known active numbers. Since the DNC is an opt-in thing, the call centers know that people have proactively added their numbers to the list.
If: you’re a starred contact and call twice within 10 minutes and I happen to have the phone at hand and I’m pretty sure you have something important to say I’ll probably pick it up.
That happens about once or twice a year. We invented voicemail so we can speak when it works well for both parties.
“It’s the anxiety associated with real-time conversations, potential awkwardness, not having the answers and the pressure to respond immediately” - this hits the nail on the head for me about not wanting to be on the phone/teams call in the work place. Being pulled into a call with no context is my biggest nightmare.
I am Gen X (1970 give or take a couple of years) and I don’t answer shit. I look up numbers and rarely listen to Voicemails. If you know me and I want to talk to you, you will know how to reach me. Everyone else can get fucked.
I think it’s less generational and more fuck all this spam and scams.
Yeah, I’m early gen-x and I only answer the phone if its a member of my immediate family and even then it’s 50/50. Capitalism ruins everything. Need to talk to me? Leave a message and I’ll decide if and when to call you back.
Everyone I want to talk to knows not to call me; I feel exactly the same. Phones used to be useful, but the sheer volume of telemarketers and scams have reduced it to uselessness. If it wasn’t for 2FA occasionally requiring a phone number, I wouldn’t even have one at this point.
Same. In the last few years (2?) I don’t think I have given it out anywhere. I just pretend to not have a phone number, and if people think that’s weird I don’t care, deal with it. Nowadays if a service requires my phone number, I don’t need that service. Or in rare cases I’ll try to find a free online number for receiving a code, but that’s the only alternative I take.
You don’t always have a choice as it is dictated by the service provider, but whenever possible, disable SMS based MFA and enable TOTP or something else. SMS based MFA is susceptible to SS7 MitM attack.
Sure works wonders if you’re busy with a chore. Laundry? Dishwashing (for the unfortunate souls without easy access to a dishwasher)? That’s the best time to call any yakker you know!
Another advantage of text, for me at least, is that I can read much faster than I can listen. This is why I prefer text articles to news videos, even though video can often offer extra visual information over what photographs can offer.
That said, I do somewhat agree with the article’s concern that live conversation is an independent skill and potentially has its own unique side-benefits that might be becoming rarer.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
I get called like once or twice a week, and it’s usually something time sensitive or important. Always found people just flat out refusing to answer the phone crazy.
I don’t really get the whole not answering the phone thing. I hate phonecalls but I always answer my phone.
The amount of important calls I’d have missed if I buried my head in the sand like that is insane.
Sure if 90% of the calls were sales or scams I’d think differently, but there are ways to prevent that too.
I find it weird that everyone has their phone on silent all the time too. If mine was on silent I’d never look at it unless I’m bored.
Important news almost never comes via phone call. It comes in the mail or via email.
Tell that to the delivery driver that called me because they were outside with my groceries.
I get those notifications via text message.
Cool, with the phone on silent (which I don’t do) I’d have missed that too, and would have been cancelled and rescheduled.
This adamant denial that phone calls are useful is weird.
I never said they’re not useful for anyone. They’re not useful for me.
You realize that it still vibrates when on silent, so you know when you’re getting a text or phone call right?
Only if it’s right by you or isn’t in your bag or something. Hence audible alerts, they break through the physical barriers.
Gross, voice notes are the worst of both worlds.
Text for things that are information critical, phone calls for things that are time critical.
Email for business (and keep the original chain going instead of starting a new one every time you think of something else to add!), text messages for associates, chat apps for friends and family.
Anyone who disagrees is wrong.
Voice notes are pretty great when you’re driving.
I’ve actively told any friend that send me a voice note that if you want me to respond to you don’t send it as a voice note, I won’t listen to it. It requires me to put headphones in or play it on speaker, and neither of those are happening unless it’s important.
hard agree, voice messages are the worst of both worlds, you can’t look at it and get the gist of what’s said, and you have to deal with listening to it, while requiring more bandwidth to use.
I’ve told my friends instead of pressing the voice button, just press the speech to text button, I’m more likely to read a wall of text than listen to a voice message.
I mostly agree, but I think voice notes for close friends/family probably have a point.
At this point, I would also argue that texts/emails are also for time critical things since voice calls are essentially dead at this point.
99.99999% of the phone calls I get are spam. I haven’t gotten a new voice mail in like 6 months.
They are the worst unless you want to hear that person’s voice.
Yeah, voice notes are the “your solution to your problem is somewhere in the middle of this 20 minute long YouTube video that could have been a short forum post with some screenshots instead” of the communication world.
Jesus, it’s not just me! It seems like every answer I need is only found in a video format without labeled bookmarks/sections. I hate it so much. Give me a how-to with concise instructions and gifs, or give me death.
Can’t get ad revenue on a short, concise, and helpful page.
Even a basic cookie recipe requires someone’s whole life story to fill in the blank space between 10 ads
I can’t speak for others but as an older millennial, I grew up liking spending time on the phone with friends and loved ones. However in my adult life, I spent being anxious waiting for phone calls regarding job interviews and outcomes of them, and even being interviewed on some of them, including those without much notice. I also had to make calls to follow up things urgently or if I’m in trouble. As a result, I started to equate phone calls as mostly negative experiences.
Spam has destroyed the phonecall. I screen everything and people know to text me first.
Besides its rude to think you can just interrupt someone in the middle of what they are doing without asking via text first anyway.
I’ve been nervous of phoning people since long before cellphones were invented, precisely because it always seemed rude to make someone’s phone ring and demand a conversation when they’re in the middle of whatever they’re doing. It’s interesting to see more people coming to see it like this.
I would flat out ignore the pony express rider when he came galloping up with all that noise and dust. Who does he think he is?
Is that not what the post office is for? Were pony express riders stopping at every individual farm and cabin?
I view phoning someone like popping over to their house and knocking on the door to chat with no prior warning. No one likes that.
Both phone calls and emails are so full of ad-ridden garbage that they are useless for communication.
Texts are better signal-to-noise ratio, for me it is more like only 1% con artist identity thieves compared to the 99% coming via phone call.
I don’t know if phone call spam is only an American thing or something. In my country (and most of Europe) that stuff is effectively banned and doesn’t really happen.
Still hate getting calls though.
having proper bans in place do help, cutting number spoofing and rooting out local spam sources + barring voips that facilitate them means spam callers would have to connect internationally and cost more.
deleted by creator
Eh. Gen-x here. I still have an hour long phonecall over signal with my best friend over signal two times a week or so.
In my teens I wasn’t too happy about making phonecalls either, but working on a helpdesk for a while sure cured that.
On the other hand, I live in a country with consumer protection, so robocalls are not a thing. And I’d strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger (and GDPR) those companies who attempt to poison and destroy my personal attention.
The US has a do not call list. The vast majority of robocalls are illegal scams which originate from outside of the country.
So those calls are not for the benefit of US companies?
Who knows?
We know the call center is not US-based, as those can be fined.
I’d venture most are scams too.
The majority of them are run from scam call centers in India, but also in Southeast Asia.
Like I said, they’re mostly scams. Warranty scams. Posing as “your bank” (which they, of course, don’t name). Etc. Legitimate companies follow the do not call list, since there are heavy penalties if they don’t.
Gotcha. That sucks.
Even worse, many of those scammy companies use the Do Not Call list as a list of known active numbers. Since the DNC is an opt-in thing, the call centers know that people have proactively added their numbers to the list.
Canada as well.
I don’t mind a ‘phone call’ so long as it isn’t actually using a phone number where ISPs can spy, but using some encrypted service.
If: you’re a starred contact and call twice within 10 minutes and I happen to have the phone at hand and I’m pretty sure you have something important to say I’ll probably pick it up.
That happens about once or twice a year. We invented voicemail so we can speak when it works well for both parties.
“It’s the anxiety associated with real-time conversations, potential awkwardness, not having the answers and the pressure to respond immediately” - this hits the nail on the head for me about not wanting to be on the phone/teams call in the work place. Being pulled into a call with no context is my biggest nightmare.
I am Gen X (1970 give or take a couple of years) and I don’t answer shit. I look up numbers and rarely listen to Voicemails. If you know me and I want to talk to you, you will know how to reach me. Everyone else can get fucked.
I think it’s less generational and more fuck all this spam and scams.
in my voicemail greeting i tell people to text or email me.
Gen X’er. Same here. I don’t even leave the ringer turned on on my phone. Fuck that shit. If you know me too know how to find me.
deleted by creator
I’m the same generation. My flowchart is: known contact, answer. Unknown contact, voicemail. Automatic VM transcriptions are great.
I don’t think anyone answers the phone now, unless they recognize the number.
Most of the calls I get are
Lucky me I rarely get spam calls
American? I’m from The Netherlands and I get maybe 1 spam call every other month or so. And I’ve been using the same number for almost 25 years.
Must be nice to a functional telecommunications agency that has the tools to punish soammers.
Oh we do too. Verizon and att make money off of selling the scammers our phone numbers and they wont spend the money to stop it
Canada, we face the same issues as the US for telecom stuff
Settings>Do not disturb>exceptions>Caller in contacts
alt: Set default ringtone to silent, no vibration, Set people in contacts to custom ringtones.
Also on iOS: Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers
in ios there is a phone app setting to silence unknown callers.
Yeah, I’m early gen-x and I only answer the phone if its a member of my immediate family and even then it’s 50/50. Capitalism ruins everything. Need to talk to me? Leave a message and I’ll decide if and when to call you back.
Everyone I want to talk to knows not to call me; I feel exactly the same. Phones used to be useful, but the sheer volume of telemarketers and scams have reduced it to uselessness. If it wasn’t for 2FA occasionally requiring a phone number, I wouldn’t even have one at this point.
Use an authenticator or Yubi key. SMS authentication is the worst possible method.
Same. In the last few years (2?) I don’t think I have given it out anywhere. I just pretend to not have a phone number, and if people think that’s weird I don’t care, deal with it. Nowadays if a service requires my phone number, I don’t need that service. Or in rare cases I’ll try to find a free online number for receiving a code, but that’s the only alternative I take.
You don’t always have a choice as it is dictated by the service provider, but whenever possible, disable SMS based MFA and enable TOTP or something else. SMS based MFA is susceptible to SS7 MitM attack.
Texting is also damn convenient, I can deal with several conversations at once without having to pause the movie I’m watching.
Speaking on the phone doesn’t just tie your line, it ties your whole life too.
Sure works wonders if you’re busy with a chore. Laundry? Dishwashing (for the unfortunate souls without easy access to a dishwasher)? That’s the best time to call any yakker you know!
Another advantage of text, for me at least, is that I can read much faster than I can listen. This is why I prefer text articles to news videos, even though video can often offer extra visual information over what photographs can offer.
That said, I do somewhat agree with the article’s concern that live conversation is an independent skill and potentially has its own unique side-benefits that might be becoming rarer.
Meanwhile, boomers will spend hours talking to a ChatGPT script that has convinced them its the real Oprah Winfrey.
hahahahaha im dying idk why youre getting downvoted
Well obvs the bots got offended
I always answer the phone.
Because if you’re not in my contacts my phone doesn’t even ring.
This. I just set my phone to Do not disturb and only the calls from my contacts list are exempted.
in ios the phone app has a setting to silence unknown callers.