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I hate telephones

jameshfisher.com

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Re: I hate telephones

#211

Post by Trav5 »

mikestew wrote: post #35
Trav5 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but same here. Born in the 80s and only our parents have landlines. Though my mobile and office phone receive far more spam calls than real calls. My Google voice line gets a hand full of robot voicemails per day. The "Should I answer?" app blocks a lot, but not all.

Born in the 60s, old enough to be your parent: no landline at our house in I don’t know how many years. We both have a phone that’s nearby all of the time, what would we do with a landline except as a spam vector? And my parents, who are old enough to be your grandparents? Ditched the landline a couple of years ago. I have no idea what the demographics look like for hardlines anymore.

True, not that it matters, but my parents and my in laws have a decade or two on you... One lives in an area with poor cell service (surrounded by good service). My Dad doesn't carry, and when he does it's a feature phone that is off. Ha.

Of the residents I know for sure do or don't have a land line, they are the only ones.

Re: I hate telephones

#212

Post by damontal »

amelius wrote: post #176
kibwen wrote: post #37

I receive about 20 spam calls per day. In contrast, I receive about 0.2 legitimate calls per day. Google itself suspects that these are spam calls, because it pops up a bright red "SUSPECTED SPAM CALLER" warning when the phone begins ringing. And yet, I have found no option to have the phone automatically decline the call. There's not even an option to silence the ringer for any call not from my contacts; I actually…

If everybody who received spam calls wasted 5 minutes of the caller's time, then the whole problem would not exist.

Here's a great podcast episode where the guy tracks his phone scammer to India and pays him a visit.

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/long-distance/

Re: I hate telephones

#213

Post by opcenter »

kibwen wrote: post #37

I receive about 20 spam calls per day. In contrast, I receive about 0.2 legitimate calls per day. Google itself suspects that these are spam calls, because it pops up a bright red "SUSPECTED SPAM CALLER" warning when the phone begins ringing. And yet, I have found no option to have the phone automatically decline the call. There's not even an option to silence the ringer for any call not from my contacts; I actually…

I've had a similar experience with the spam calls. I don't get quite as many per day, but ~90% of the calls I receive are spam. I just don't answer my phone anymore unless it's my wife, my mom, or one of my brothers. I direct all other calls to voicemail after grumbling about being interrupted.

I haven't found a good solution for auto directing spam calls to voicemail beyond using Do Not Disturb from 8 pm to 7 am.

Re: I hate telephones

#214

Post by microcolonel »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #170
marssaxman wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to have synchronous remote conversations?

The same reason why sometimes meetings are actually important and faster to come to a decisions than email or chat. When you have all the stakeholders in front of each other, either physically or virtually, information is disseminated and decisions come together much quicker.

Indeed, the mythical "good meeting". I swear I've seen it firsthand, but nobody believes me.

Re: I hate telephones

#215

Post by Bromskloss »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #133

> If I were rich, I would have a permanent secretary. If I ever play and win the lottery this is the one thing I would spent big money on. No expensive cars, no expensive wine, just a person which takes care of everything. Need a new insurance for the car? Tell the secretary to do it. Car is broken? Tell the secretary to take care of it. Need a hotel? Tell the personal secretary to book one. Phone broken? Just send a…

> Just send an email

Are you going to send it yourself, and miss out on the archetypal secretarial duty of dictation?

Re: I hate telephones

#217

Post by opcenter »

xg15 wrote: post #200

> I hate telephones. > The problem is the medium. The problem is synchronous communication. The problem is the telephone. I hate telephones. > I’m told that, in 1993, 2.5 million people in the UK had “telephone phobia”. That’s over 4%, similar to rates of arachnophobia. This is not unusual, and I’d bet rates are higher now. Everyone hates telephones. > ... Asynchronous textual communication is how everyone communicat…

I think the problem is that there's a perception that a phone call is an interrupt event. Because you have a person on the phone waiting for you to answer, you have to (or should) answer the call.

So, if the matter is important then a phone call is completely appropriate. But if it's just a call to say "hey, how's it going?" then perhaps a text message or email is a better choice with a "let me know when it's a good time to call" added in so you can have a normal voice conversation without either party being interrupted.

Re: I hate telephones

#218

Post by wruza »

I noticed that people of my age (30+) who don’t take unknown calls usually feel inner insecurities that influence (or cause) their unhappy lives. It may be debt, unmet responsibilities, fear of being abused, etc. I can remember the time when landlines were new and everyone was excited to take a call and to speak to someone who’s not even around.

The story also reminds me an old joke/anecdote. English gentlemen club, a gentleman naps in a chair near the fireplace. His boots are almost on fire. One man notices that, but the club etiquette disallows one to speak to the person he doesn’t know. After looking for pretty long he finally finds someone who at least knows the name of that gentleman and is able to speak to him. They wake him up and after a greeting the gentleman who knows him says: “Dear Sir, it is rainy weather today, and this fireplace is conveniently hot. By the way, I’m sad to tell you that your left boot is already burned down.”

I think that author puts too many gentle ceremony into just a short call.

Re: I hate telephones

#220

Post by mikestew »

Trav5 wrote: post #211
mikestew wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Born in the 60s, old enough to be your parent: no landline at our house in I don’t know how many years. We both have a phone that’s nearby all of the time, what would we do with a landline except as a spam vector? And my parents, who are old enough to be your grandparents? Ditched the landline a couple of years ago. I have no idea what the demographics look like for hardlines anymore.

True, not that it matters, but my parents and my in laws have a decade or two on you... One lives in an area with poor cell service (surrounded by good service). My Dad doesn't carry, and when he does it's a feature phone that is off. Ha. Of the residents I know for sure do or don't have a land line, they are the only ones.

Yeah, there is the assumption of “for those with coverage”. We couldn’t cut the line until we switched to T-Mobile, because AT&T could not get coverage to our house smack in the middle of Redmond, WA.
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