People Have a Call O Phobia

The title reflects my own experiences. I’ve also mostly steered clear of WhatsApp and other social media platforms. However, I did check my Mastodon feed occasionally, but I mainly used Miniflux to read blog posts and news.

Cover image  People Have a Call O Phobia

About a year ago, I had to start using WhatsApp again because of certain circumstances. While we were travelling, we used it a lot to keep in touch with our family. It was the only way to send images while we were on the ship. That is, until we found out that Signal and Threema were also good options. However, we already had a group set up with older relatives and friends who aren’t as tech-savvy or keen on installing new apps, so we stuck with WhatsApp.

I’ve been getting more and more dissatisfied with it, and I’m seriously thinking of abandoning it soon. I was particularly affected by the article “Living like it’s 99”, which I’ve included below.

Likewise, I thought I’d come back to the original topic that prompted me to write this and share my own experience of what I’d call ‘call-phobia’. Given how often I have to commute, I don’t text. I think writing texts is a bit time-consuming, and having a conversation in person or on the phone often gets results more quickly. Plus, I usually get a reply right away.

It’s pretty standard practice at work to send a text via the company messaging app to ask if it’s okay to call. I find this a bit strange. If my status shows that I’m online and available, why not just call? There’s no need to ask for permission. When I express this, the response I often get is, “Oh, I think it’s more polite to ask than just to call.” This baffles me. Back in the day, when we only had landline phones, we didn’t send a letter asking for permission before picking up the phone to make a call, did we?

My approach is simple: if it’s important, and you need a quick response, either drop by or give me a call. If it’s not urgent, feel free to send a text. But don’t expect me to respond the same day.

I agree that people’s behaviour can seem strange these days. I agree with Gregory that we’ve reached a dangerous level in society where people seem to fear human interaction.

Here is the section from the blog entry:

Human Interaction

Texting was easy with the smartphone, so talking to people over messages was relatively simple. However when I switched to a “dumb phone”, texting became painful, unless I was on my computer (Signal has a desktop app).

So I started calling people… and quickly discovered that a lot of them have a call phobia, as if human interactions were toxic.

Not in the sense that they’d be busy and would call me later. But in the sense that they wouldn’t pick up, only to text me 5 seconds later to start the conversation. If I tried to call them back, same thing again. They don’t want to talk, they want to text.

We’ve reached a dangerous level in society where people are afraid of human interaction, refusing a phone call because it makes them interact more humanly and with less control. Texting gives you more reflection on what you’re gonna say than a real and instant conversation.

From: https://www.alvarez.io/posts/living-like-it-s-99/