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I hate telephones

jameshfisher.com

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Re: I hate telephones

#371

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

In the past I had a neutral attitude towards telephones. Until one day I realized I receive quite too many and started checking - how many of them are really useful to me. How often someone calls to give me something, and how often they want something from me. It turned out almost in 100% cases the calls were from people who wanted something from me. And of course they wanted a synchronous reply I couldn't or sometimes didn't want to give. So I decided to block all calls instead of one number (from my second half - in this case it doesn't matter if she wants to give or take, I'm still fine with all her calls).

And you know what? Most friends quickly learned to respect it. They know they can always communicate to me via e-mail and I'll happily call them back or meet or whatever is needed. I use my phone mainly as a minicomputer with an additional function of communicating with the person I choose. And for these rare cases when I actually need to wait for an important phone call (this happens once a year maybe) I use an old throwaway phone with a prepaid SIM card. I only switch it on for as long as it's needed.

Re: I hate telephones

#372

Post by sdfjkl »

> I unplugged my landline phone. I have only plugged it back in once, and briefly, when debugging my internet connection, to check whether the line had a dial tone.

That's generally the only thing landline phones are good for anymore. When I lived in the UK I was with the nerdiest ISP there (AAISP) and they offer a "broadband only" landline, that carries your DSL and a basic diagnostic service including a dialtone (mostly to prevent wayward OpenReach engineers from misdiagnosing your copper pair as "unused"), but no real phone calls. Suited me fine.

Re: I hate telephones

#373

Post by DoubleGlazing »

I get this totally. I don't like calling, not because of any anxiety, but because I don't know what awaits me. When I call a company I feel like although I am initiating the contact, they will take control of the call.

And as for receiving I remember someone mentioning that a ringing phone is essentially someone saying "Speak to me now, speak to me now, speak to me now". It is an inherently rude form of communication because it demands instant attention with no regard to what you may be doing.

I just don't answer calls these days unless they are from family. I was getting a lot of sales calls from my electricity provider who also wanted to sell me gas. We don't have gas at our home, but they wouldn't log that fact. So I blocked their number.

Last week I got an email from them saying that they had been trying to call me for some time to let me know about an amazing offer, and that they think I may have accidentally blocked their number.

Of course, they couldn't just put the details of the offer in the email. I had to call them.

Re: I hate telephones

#374

Post by qznc »

nicky0 wrote: post #330
qznc wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! Phone calls are most impolite way to begin communication in my opinion. I'm probably not alone, because a lot of my acquaintances send a chat message first, like "hi, can I call you right now?". It can also lead to priority inversion. You handle the caller first despite having a higher priority (like a person next to you). Phone calls feel more urgent. Some people exploit this (e.g. salesmen). (I might have pho…

Turn off vibrations, disable voicemail and set your phone to silent. That way you only get calls when you are looking at your phone. Missed calls go to your call register and you can call them back at a convenient time to your.

Yes, I often do this. Call register is missing the subject and even the name for unknown numbers.

Re: I hate telephones

#375

Post by zkomp »

DanBC wrote: post #370
zkomp wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why should you treat it if it is not a disorder? I think it is more a design issue with phones (than it is a phobia like for spiders). Or rather: It is more a situation like if phones also happens to spew out huge spiders all over you in addition to letting you communicate remotely, and people get phobia as a result. Why should I accept being woken up in the middle of the night for spam? Is this good design…

There is a difference between disliking something, and having an adrenaline-driven fight or flight fear response to something. OP doesn't just dislike phones that ring in the middle of the night. OP dislikes phones all day every day, and dislikes them to the extent that he has a physical reaction to them. Also, I'm not saying that OP must get treatment. I've given OP a strategy to continue to avoid using phones if th…

Yes, I was half joking and only half serious. I would probably qualify for phone phobia myself and I also definitely prefer not to treat it with government programs or similar. Thus my answer.

As some other guy said: the only time people call is if they want something from you. Yes, but then I prefer to not be force to make an decision on the spot, rather think one minute and then answer, or preferable not be disturbed to begin with.

Some other guy quoted Scott Adams; And I agree "all phone calls have a victim, i.e. the person receiving the call".

So yes, I could qualify for phone phobia, but I don't think there is anything wrong with it, It is rather strange how people think phones are so natural and good, and must be used. No, they are horrible and tools of evil.

And I'd rather not have a formal diagnose with a paper/digital trail of such a "sensitive" issue as hating phones, I prefer not be sucked into the mental health industry as a patient, prefer not doing the CBT training with exposure to phones or whatever, and I would not be forcing my employer to make even resonable adjustments (I'd rather adjust my employment to something else)

Re: I hate telephones

#376

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

projektir wrote: post #85

I recently had to spend a lot of time on the phone to set something important up. It was a very frustrating experience. I would call them, and be met with a robocall. The robocall would not really have a section for what I actually needed to do, so I would stumble around and often end up at the wrong person. Often we were both confused and it wasn't clear what was going on. Every time I called, it's a different perso…

By far the worst phone call experience I've ever had was with Washington Health Plan Finder. You can still experience it for yourself by making a call now. It's a never-ending loop of holding followed by mind-numbing options and random hangups. If you get lucky to speak with a real person, the level of incompetence will drive you to the brink of insanity. I swear, they just let random people walk in from the street to take calls because those people have zero idea what they are talking about. My experience ended in me cancelling all of our insurance policies with Kaiser because I was stuck in a beaurocratic nightmare that had me transferring from one institution to the other in a never-ending loop. Somehow NOBODY was able to help me. I was so fed up with this situation that I moved countries half way around the world.

Re: I hate telephones

#378

Post by megaman22 »

strathmeyer wrote: post #41
throw401 wrote: post #34

I hate telephones too, and I DON'T have an anxiety disorder please!!! I'm just not the guy always ready for a call. I rarely pick up the phone or open the door for a unknown call, and yes it can create stress. Quite often I am very focussed and balanced, one call can ruin that state. If you cannot find yourself in this, please don't create a disease out of it.

Yes, things that cause you stress can be neurosis and psychoses. If it ruins your focus it is affecting your life and can be classified as a disorder.

I guess managers are a disorder then.

Re: I hate telephones

#379

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

kemayo wrote: post #61
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…

Strangely enough, given Android's comparatively-customizable nature, I think this is an area where iOS does it better? (Others might correct me.) iOS 10 added "call blocking" as an app-type, which lets you choose apps which can filter phone calls for you. They can flag calls as possible-spam, or completely block them. (See [1] for Hiya's options screen, as an example.) An "only ring for my friends" feature is sort of…

I was looking at F-Droid repo and found QuiteSleep from 2012 which has option to "block unknown", so seems android solved this long ago.

Re: I hate telephones

#380

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

jimmyswimmy wrote: post #286
vilmosi wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android can absolutely do this. Either via settings or replacing the default calling app.

Can't. You can block individual numbers, but there is no tool in the base Android to block all unknowns. Fortunately there are plenty of apps which will do exactly that - but I'm confused as to why I need to install an app to do something so simple.

Because if any core OS had to contain every feature which is deemed "simple" then that OS will become bloated and complex.
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