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The first minute of every phone call is torture now

theatlantic.com

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Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#321

Post by coldpie »

Cederfjard wrote: post #314
coldpie wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not. It depends on who you and your circle of friends are, of course, but dating apps are definitely way higher usage than phone calls among anyone I know. I use my phone as a phone less than half a dozen times per year. If the phone functionality vanished, I don't think I would mind.

You only do voice calls six times in a year?

Something on that order, yeah. Looking through my phone's call log, I had a call with a friend in mid-August, and another with another friend in mid-July. Prior to that was a call with my mom in April and that's as far back as the log goes.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#323

Post by paultopia »

The most interesting part of the linked article is this:

Online, ad-riddled, search-engine-optimized webpages offer folk solutions: disconnect Bluetooth; reconnect Bluetooth; factory-reset the earbuds; reboot the phone; and so on. Like a finger trap, these desires for remedy plunge the user only further into the technological murk and its associated despair.

How did this happen? It’s really bizarre and weird that it’s vastly easier to get basic usage and troubleshooting information through googling for stuff that very few people use (linux command line utilities!) than for stuff that basically everyone uses. Is it just SEO wars? Is it because conversations about sed or something select for much higher skill levels and commitment than conversations about AirPods?

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#324

Post by meragrin_ »

tmjwid wrote: post #277
GaylordTuring wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the reasons why I always let the phone hoover a couple of centimeters from my face when talking to someone. Utterly ridiculous!

This is the way you are meant to hold a phone anyway. In the manuals it states this (e.g apple says 5mm-15mm from your head). This is to reduce SAR.

What is SAR?

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#325

Post by vineyardmike »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #121
vineyardmike wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother had no issues calling someone but her parents were upset when she started listening to that damn rock and roll. The youth thing inhibits way too much authentic music. People are just scared to listen to the oldies. /s Différent generations have different norms and it’s not right or wrong.

While I didn’t understand the analogy, I will happily admit that, yes, I’m making the case that some norms are better and some are worse.

a few generations ago, there was a moral panic that the kids weren’t all right because rock and roll music was corrupting. It was loud, vulgar, etc and therefore wrong.

My point was to emphasize how across generations, everyone seems to think that the youth have bad norms and it’s somehow wrong, and then they grow up and the world keeps spinning, and the cycle repeats.

It’s awfully vain to think that the norms of your generation in your nation at your point in time are magically the ”better” ones.

The parent comment reference a novel idea that phone calls could have a subject line. It’s novel, it’s clever, it would solve many problems beyond just “people are scared to be human”. The world moves on, and we can improve it or we can launch ad hominem attacks on the next generation.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#328

Post by factsarelolz »

ahelwer wrote: post #290
VBprogrammer wrote: post #172

I expected this to be about the now common pattern of subjecting people to some shit version of Alexa for 10 minutes before you eventually crack and allow them to sit on hold for someone who might actually be able to solve their problem. Bonus shit biscuits if you allow them to get to some answer from Brenda (the brainless Alexa clone) where you basically say "great news, you can do this online". As if anyone with ha…

This has reached new heights when calling USCIS for immigration issues. You have to avoid certain trigger words or the callbot will shunt you into a loop that can only terminate with it sending you an email on how to do something on the website, then hanging up. If you say "operator" it will go on a spiel about how helpful it is and you should ask it a question. If you say "operator" again it will hang up on you. The…

No post body was provided.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#329

Post by vineyardmike »

tristor wrote: post #183
vineyardmike wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother had no issues calling someone but her parents were upset when she started listening to that damn rock and roll. The youth thing inhibits way too much authentic music. People are just scared to listen to the oldies. /s Différent generations have different norms and it’s not right or wrong.

>Différent generations have different norms Yes. > and it’s not right or wrong. No. This sort of relativism of all norms, mores, morals, and ethics needs to stop. There are some cultural and social norms/mores that are better than others. We know this, because empirically some produce better outcomes than others. Mass-scale social anxiety at having to interact with another human being is NOT healthy for society, and…

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess 17 year olds who can’t call people aren’t the reason for societies problems. Certainly less to blame than the 45yo’s who bemoan them.

Every generation thought that society was collapsing. Despite that, time progresses, people age out of the population and a new generation is born. And society (mostly) doesn’t collapse.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#330

Post by 3pt14159 »

dfxm12 wrote: post #231
3pt14159 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low-latency for local calls, yes. High quality sound, also yes. But for long distance, no thank you. I will not go back to the 90s just for that one reason alone. It was hellish calling across the Atlantic. Like 15 cents a minute with a 1.5 (sometimes 2) second delay between speaking. And having to remember the dialling sequences and complexity around looking up foreign phone numbers, both of which are now just built…

Or having to trudge around in the rain for a phone booth and having to page through a worn out phone book just to make some dinner reservations. Yuck. Pretending like this was the only way to make a dinner reservation reminds me of the juice loosener informercial from the Simpsons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viejY6UZ5Bk

I didn't pretend it was the only way, I was saying that there are times when one is out and needs to make reservations or call the wife that went into labour or call work after a car broke down. These were actual, real things people did back then. Thankfully I'm young enough to only have had to do it for a couple of years, but I do not have Merry England syndrome around what phones were like in the mid nineties.

Even caller id is a major win on its own.

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