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I hate telephones

jameshfisher.com

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Re: I hate telephones

#311

Post by wildrhythms »

dheera wrote: post #306

I hate not just telephones, but being funneled into this whole culture of being disturbed, and disturbing people anywhere, anytime, at will, for things that can wait. As both an introvert and a technical person I do almost everything I do with deep concentration, whether that be coding, playing piano, reading papers, biking, driving, or hiking. A single phone ring, a single "hey what's up", while I'm in the middle of…

>they can just call me "sometime in the afternoon".

Oh dear GOD this is possibly one of the worst phrases to ever be uttered by a human being. I have no doubt that this single phrase has stolen countless entire days or weeks of many people's life.

Waiting for your call means not doing something that I can concentrate on. I'll even avoid conversations with others while waiting for your call because I don't want to have to take your call and break a meaningful conversation or make the other person feel like your call is worth more of my time than theirs. I have to stay chained to my phone, often chained to a secluded area where I know your call and our conversation won't disturb others around me. Waiting for your call means all other appointments and events between now and your call are hereby cancelled. I'm afraid to use the restroom while waiting for your call because I fear I'll miss your call while washing my hands. I'm afraid to eat or drink- what if I get the hiccups? What if my soda pop is especially carbonated and I end up burping all during our discussion? Why am I subjected to wait on you at all? No, my entire life stops because of your choice to use this inefficient, synchronous communication medium. My life is too short to wait for your call.

Text message is OK

Re: I hate telephones

#312

Post by naikrovek »

DanBC wrote: post #243
Singletoned wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to hate them to a phobic degree, now I just hate them. I really dislike how much people are dismissing this. If I hated spiders, people wouldn't say "Oh you're just covering up an anxiety disorder".

Hang on - people aren't dismissing this as trivial; they're saying it's a common phobia (which is a form of anxiety disorder) and that there's good news: phobia is very treatable with a short course of therapy. That's freely available in England with short wait times.

It's done over the phone, isn't it?

Re: I hate telephones

#313

Post by emodendroket »

figurehe4d wrote: post #173
izacus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 spam calls per day? That sounds like torture... is there really no body in USA that would prevent that from happening? (I've never received a spam call on my now 20 year old phone number.)

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, the ones that DO give you the option to be 'do not call' will forward your number to other spammers, actually increasing the spam calls you get. Do not ask them to put you on the d-n-c list! Here's what does work (in my experience): answer the call, but say nothing, heck, mute your phone mic if you have to. Just give them silence. I'm not sure if there's some 'person on the oth…

> Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, the ones that DO give you the option to be 'do not call' will forward your number to other spammers, actually increasing the spam calls you get. Do not ask them to put you on the d-n-c list!

Anybody legitimate that's not true. But it's so easy to spoof your number that there are a lot of bad actors.

Re: I hate telephones

#314

Post by emodendroket »

maxerickson wrote: post #132
izacus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 spam calls per day? That sounds like torture... is there really no body in USA that would prevent that from happening? (I've never received a spam call on my now 20 year old phone number.)

The internet myth is that it doesn't work but all you have to do is answer and ask them to put you on their do not call list. Not give them a big tiresome speech about how they are breaking the law, just ask them not to call anymore ("Please put this number on your courtesy do not call list"). They actually don't want to waste their time...

You probably have to stay on the phone while they do it though.

Re: I hate telephones

#315

Post by wildrhythms »

dingo_bat wrote: post #310
wildrhythms wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes the audio medium more 'important' to you? If 1:1 is important, what if you were provided the direct email address of a representative at the company? What are you able to convey over the phone that you can't directly via some other method?

I think the instant feedback is the most important thing for me. If I want to convey something that is a bit important for me, I need to get it done and move on to something else. I can tick off that item in my mental checklist immediately. With an email or chat, there is a delay. And there is no guarantee of feedback. I need to switch to another task knowing that this one isn't done yet.

I can understand this for some things; for others, the phone is an interface to an email. Can you give an example?

"We'll send a service technician to you as soon as we can!"

-> Effectively an email/form that I myself could have sent

"I updated your account with this new information."

-> Effectively an email/form that I myself could have sent

"What does the error message say?"

-> Better conveyed through email/chat

If you feel like your requests are being ignored over non-phone mediums, then that sounds like a failure of the organization and not email/text/chat as a medium, at least that's how I see it.

Re: I hate telephones

#316

Post by emodendroket »

auggierose wrote: post #43
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…

You can install an app that kills all unknown calls. That's what I did.

That doesn't seem like a great idea. Like, one time my wife was hospitalized and they called to tell me. I think I would have been upset with myself if I didn't receive that call because I had installed an app to kill all calls from numbers I didn't recognize.

Re: I hate telephones

#317

Post by cjbillington »

icebraining wrote: post #186
amelius wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

On that note: https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/comments/4gjtd1/whats_your...

Oh wow, thanks for this. That subreddit was at least an hour of fun.

Re: I hate telephones

#318

Post by jsudhams »

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…

Truecaller does this for android

Re: I hate telephones

#319

Post by daveFNbuck »

tyingq wrote: post #266
daveFNbuck wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you do this via settings in Android? I've spent hours searching for the answer and have yet to find it.

Add spammers phone as a contact, then select "all calls to voicemail" for that contact.

That's not a very useful solution if I have to do it once for each spammer. You wouldn't accept that for e-mail.

Re: I hate telephones

#320

Post by matthberg »

Sidnicious wrote: post #267

After reading this, I just started experimentally sending all calls to voicemail. Here's how I set it up; it should work with GSM phone carriers: - Dial the below number. It'll show a bunch of information, including your voicemail number. Remember/copy the number. *#67# - Create a new contact. I put "Phone Off" in the company name field. Use the below number as its phone number, replacing the "X"s with the number fro…

Awesome, and I bet with pinning of contacts to home screen this could easily be used without ever touching the phone app. Also would be cool to use tasker to increase integration with multiple triggers or timeouts.
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