Why No One Answers Their Phone Anymore (theatlantic.com) 429
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via The Atlantic, written by Alexis C. Madrigal: No one picks up the phone anymore. Even many businesses do everything they can to avoid picking up the phone. Of the 50 or so calls I received in the last month, I might have picked up four or five times. The reflex of answering -- built so deeply into people who grew up in 20th-century telephonic culture -- is gone. There are many reasons for the slow erosion of this commons. The most important aspect is structural: There are simply more communication options. Text messaging and its associated multimedia variations are rich and wonderful: words mixed with emoji, Bitmoji, reaction gifs, regular old photos, video, links. Texting is fun, lightly asynchronous, and possible to do with many people simultaneously. It's almost as immediate as a phone call, but not quite. You've got your Twitter, your Facebook, your work Slack, your email, FaceTimes incoming from family members. So many little dings have begun to make the rings obsolete.
But in the last couple years, there is a more specific reason for eyeing my phone's ring warily. Perhaps 80 or even 90 percent of the calls coming into my phone are spam of one kind or another. [...] There are unsolicited telemarketing calls. There are straight-up robocalls that merely deliver recorded messages. There are the cyborg telemarketers, who sit in call centers playing prerecorded bits of audio to simulate a conversation. There are the spam phone calls, whose sole purpose seems to be verifying that your phone number is real and working.
But in the last couple years, there is a more specific reason for eyeing my phone's ring warily. Perhaps 80 or even 90 percent of the calls coming into my phone are spam of one kind or another. [...] There are unsolicited telemarketing calls. There are straight-up robocalls that merely deliver recorded messages. There are the cyborg telemarketers, who sit in call centers playing prerecorded bits of audio to simulate a conversation. There are the spam phone calls, whose sole purpose seems to be verifying that your phone number is real and working.
I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:4, Insightful)
I just don't understand how you can have spam calls like that and be ok with it. Is it an american thing?
Do people think that proper laws to outlaw that behaviour is some sort of free speech issue?
Re:I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:5, Insightful)
We DO have laws against these sorts of spam calls in the US. We also have laws against people sending email spam too. Actually managing to enforce these laws is a different matter entirely.
Umm, what? Criminals are going to break the law...that's what criminals do. The problem is enforcement of the laws that already exist.
Re:I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:5, Insightful)
> We DO have laws against these sorts of spam calls in the US. We also have laws against people sending email spam too. Actually managing to enforce these laws is a different matter entirely.
No, it's really easy when it comes to phone calls - Got an illegal spam call? Report and person gets a hefty fine. Can't identify caller? Move punishment to the company that provides the call. Done.
There is no reason for someone dialling YOU to be anonymous to your telcom provider.
And no, there is no reason to make exceptions for any category of calls, be it political or non-profit.
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Re:I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:5, Funny)
Yup, the only real issue is the reluctance to hold the telecoms accountable.
Ya, but I'm sure Ajit Pai [wikipedia.org] will get right on that. :-)
Re:I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, the only real issue is the reluctance to hold the telecoms accountable.
Ya, but I'm sure Ajit Pai [wikipedia.org] will get right on that. :-)
As much as I'd like to string up that jackass, the FTC, not the FCC is who runs the national do not call list.
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If the telecoms lost that revenue, they'd need to make it up elsewhere, meaning your monthly phone bill would go up.
Then why does the UK have far fewer spam calls and also far lower mobile phone tariffs?
I pay £16/month and get unlimited SMS, unlimited data and 2500 included minutes of voice calls. I have to send MMS messages or make international calls to get additional charges these days.
Re:I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:5, Insightful)
> We DO have laws against these sorts of spam calls in the US. We also have laws against people sending email spam too. Actually managing to enforce these laws is a different matter entirely.
No, it's really easy when it comes to phone calls - Got an illegal spam call? Report and person gets a hefty fine. Can't identify caller? Move punishment to the company that provides the call. Done. There is no reason for someone dialling YOU to be anonymous to your telcom provider. And no, there is no reason to make exceptions for any category of calls, be it political or non-profit.
That would work real well when it is sone off shore call center using VOIP and spoofing phone numbers. Spammers / scammers seem to like to use the same area code and first 3 digits to make calls appear local. My solution is to simply let al calls go to voicemail unless I recognize the caller. I get very few spam voicemails.
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My solution is to simply let al calls go to voicemail unless I recognize the caller.
I finally got an app to send all calls not from my contacts to voice mail (for some reason this option doesn't exist in the OS). My experience lately is like the OP: almost all phone calls are scam robocalls.
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That requires being able to identify the company. I get about 3 to 5 spam calls every day on my phone, each time from a different number, and there is *NO* way to identify that the calls are not from a legitimate number that does not happen to be on my list of contacts. My phone service provider says they have no ability to detect it either.
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Re: I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:4, Informative)
We do punish the companies and many times the individuals behind them. The fines are ridiculously high compared to the income. This is why there is very little domestic spamming. But there is an idiot born every minute who will be the fall guy for the off shore party.
The underlying problem is the lucrativity of the US market and the slow pace the human part of the system moves to catch these offenders. How do you catch an off shore company that springs up, makes a few million calls, and then closes shop; all in less than a month? They are only around till they get paid or start showing up in the complaint registry. Plus they don't need to maintain contact with the sucker; just offload the verbal contact at pennies on the dollar to legal businesses such as timeshares/travel agencies/money laundering scammer/etc.
If only a few receipants respond, they made their investment. By the time the user complains and enough do and the investigation starts, the originator has moved on leaving fall guys behind.
Look at the Florida case. 100 million calls over just 3 months. That's how long it took the legal system to pin him. BTW, that is ridiculously fast! Less than 2% of the calls were even interacted with. 98% weren't even picked up; yet the guy minted. He now has a $120 million fine! Many times more than his revenue. Identity tarnished for life.
But he was just the domestic forwarding agent, using simple off the shelf free software. He accounted for less than 3% of all robocalls! And none of the off shore companies who actually scammed the recipiants were traced nor held accountable. They moved onto another sucker.
I think the way to stop this is to pollute the system. Pick up, give false information, and move on. Eventually their DBs will have such pointless information that they will be worthless. A few suckers' info that is valid won't help if you can't tell who they are in the table.
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Re: I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:5, Insightful)
As others have pointed out how would you punish a company overseas? They are beyond jurisdiction of your country's laws.
Solution: Don't allow non-conforming companies to connect to the American telecom network.
Why should MY phone company (T-Mobile) be allowed to let a foreign company connect to their network and spoof a LOCAL number?
If T-Mobile pays a fine every time that happens, they will find a technical solution really quickly.
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If I knew Tom King's "private info" (the CISO of Experian
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And no, there is no reason to make exceptions for any category of calls, be it political or non-profit.
Unfortunately, there are exceptions for both.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Placing one's number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop some, but not all, unsolicited calls. The following are exceptions granted by existing laws and regulations—and these types of organizations can register with donotcall.gov and can purchase telephone lists from the Do Not Call Registry[7]
The registry only applies to personal calls, not to business lines or business to business calls.[8]
A person may still rec
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Re:I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:5, Insightful)
> We DO have laws against these sorts of spam calls in the US. We also have laws against people sending email spam too. Actually managing to enforce these laws is a different matter entirely.
No, it's really easy when it comes to phone calls - Got an illegal spam call? Report and person gets a hefty fine. Can't identify caller? Move punishment to the company that provides the call. Done.
There is no reason for someone dialling YOU to be anonymous to your telcom provider.
And no, there is no reason to make exceptions for any category of calls, be it political or non-profit.
Aside from the political and charity calls, the vast majority of the remainder are from call center operations outside of US jurisdiction. The operate from Canada, India, etc .. any where with good internet connectivity ( VoIP service ) and simple pick currently unassigned phone numbers to spoof (some of the really evil ones
will use the number they are calling for the caller id).
So what you have is a situation with many, many technical workarounds and very little legal recourse. There isn't an international treaty that bans unsolicited phone calls , just like their isn't on that bans unsolicited email. Its all local or national which is simply avoided by working from outside the jurisdiction.
If the telcos were on the hook for unidentified spam callers, they'd wouldn't allow it to be so easy to spoof caller iD.
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It would be easy enough if those in power actually wished to engorce them, rather than just passing symbolic legislation to make themselves look good without actually changing anything.
The phone company knows exactly who's calling you - they're charging them for the call. All they'd need to do is let you, e.g. dial *FU after a spam call to quickly report them. Allow a little leeway for false reports, but anyone who racks up a lot of reports gets prosecuted.
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Make it a federal law, and you don't have jurisdiction issues within the US. And nothing stops us from putting requirements on international calls - if a foreign phone company wants to be able to connect to US callers, they need to comply with US international-call regulations.
Re: I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:3)
Absolutely no legitimate international business needs to randomly call tens of thousands of people every day with a faked caller ID from the receiver's area. None.
Google voice does, for starters. If you use their "one number" feature they wouldn't be able to show you the incoming caller ID without being able to spoof it.
Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
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We DO have laws against these sorts of spam calls in the US. We also have laws against people sending email spam too. Actually managing to enforce these laws is a different matter entirely.
Our justice system is great at nailing people on pin-eyed technicality bullshit like sending Matthew Charles to prison a second time for a crime he already served his time for. And exactly what was it that Martha Stewart did?
Unfortunately, the same system also allows real criminals to get away with it over and over again.
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Indeed 80% is much. I get calls from the Indian Microsoft employee informing me ... but for the rest most is under control as I am on the Robinson list
I know him. After 30 minutes of support he was screaming into the phone while I laughed at him.
Re:I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:5, Interesting)
I just don't understand how you can have spam calls like that and be ok with it.
I try to make the most of it: I ask them all about the area that their number shows them to be calling from ("Bruce" with an Indian accent apparently resides in Idaho).
I'll string them along for as long as I possibly can, giving them ever-varying versions of my "social security number" as I "struggle to remember it," etc, etc, until they give up in frustration.
The skies the limit, here; this is a sport with few rules.
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I got a call from them when there was not one computer running Windows in the house. I was really tempted to string them along - "No, I can't find C:. Is it somewhere in /usr?" but while wasting their time I'd be also wasting my own.
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I just don't understand how you can have spam calls like that and be ok with it.
I try to make the most of it: I ask them all about the area that their number shows them to be calling from ("Bruce" with an Indian accent apparently resides in Idaho).
The thing is, "Bruce" may not realize it but a lot of legitimate call centers have remote employees using VOIP, so they may not know anything about the geographic region where the operations are centered. Being able to work from home is one way to make those jobs tolerable.
Re:I don't understand why you tolerate it (Score:4, Insightful)
The skies the limit, here; this is a sport with few rules.
It is a sport that most of us don't want to play.
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I'm in Belgium - 95% (at least) of all calls are spam.
Spam-call filtering is an add-on service by the service provider. It looks to be a source of revenue for them (both the spam-calls and the filtering).
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yes free speech is the feeble justification (Score:4, Interesting)
Our DO Not Call law inserted two exceptions beyond emergency calls
1. Politicians and polling people can call you unsolicited
2. Anyone you had a previous bussiness relationship or contact with can call.
The last one is really abused. Say you start to buy an electric fur lined shaving mug on etsy but then change your mind at the "confirm this purchase" step. You just had a bussiness relationship where you provided contact info.
Next they sell your info to some broker who sells it to 1000 other people who are now considered "affiliates" of the original transaction. SO they have standing to call on the do-not-call list.
The final problem is that phone companies all want to monetize their role in preventing you from dreading the phone ringing. Just as Ring tones were not free but were costless to provide, they want to charge you for allowing you to benefit from their curated blacklists. And they want to sell free passes one the blacklists (whitelisting) to people who pay them. They could do this for free as it's nearly costless.
SO basically the phone companies are working hard to make you hate your phone.
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You are actually correct in it at least partly falls into the free speech realm. Curtailing speech is a big deal, it's protected by the very first Amendment in the Bill of Rights, a cornerstone of 'an american thing'. This doesn't mean it's something that can't be done, as there are laws on the books, but it does mean its a very long drawn out fight to do so.
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a law that if it were enforced now would break the telephone exchange instantaneously.
Why? How? Serious question.
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We have laws against rape and murder and all kind of other things but they do no good. Understand?
I don't get raped twice a night, five times on weekends.
By and large, rape is under control - when it happens, it's terrible, but it is not a great risk and worry for most people. Most of us don't go home and think "I hope I don't get raped or murdered today".
It's not like there are rare occurrences of unsolicited phone calls coming through, hitting people once in a lifetime. It's prevalent, and enough so that, as TFA says, people don't pick up their phone anymore. Each occurrence isn't a terrible exper
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Hmm, got to wonder what the difference in our situations is. I haven't gotten an unsolicited phone call in a very long time. Like, not since Obama was President (if that recently)....
Generational differences (Score:3)
Can also be because gen-x and millenial generations are becoming dominant in the workplace.
My anecdote is my mother who worked as a receptionist and secretary for decades. It's ingrained in her culture not to hang up and to always answer the phone, even though she retired 20 years ago. This includes the obvious scammers from out of country that ask questions about her computer. "My computer is running fine, no I don't think I need to give you that, no thank you, no thank you, no thank you".
Anymore, 85% ((FTA) of calls are garbage, and with caller ID spoofing running rampant, you really don't know whom to answer that's outside your whitelist / phone book.
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And this is why I dropped my land line.
I was set on keeping it for a long time as a high reliability back-up in emergency situations, when cell networks could get saturated (the phone company powers the land line independently of the local power grid) but when the only calls I was getting were spam, and that on a daily basis, justifying the cost for something that was only being a perpetual nuisance made no sense.
It was really the daily nuisance factor that made me drop it.
The phone companies could fix this! (Score:5, Insightful)
I never answer calls anymore. 95% of the calls I get are scammers and spammers. And the caller ID is always spoofed to something that looks similar to my own number.
I've even had people call me claiming my number is spamming them!
The phone companies should be held liable for not fixing caller ID spoofing. There are numerous ways to do this. Caller ID spoofing is needed for corporate main numbers and the like. Those could be registered just like SSL certs. There is no reason a random device should be allowed to spoof.
Re:The phone companies could fix this! (Score:4, Interesting)
When looking for a new job I always put on my CV/profile not to call me during office hours. It's a great way to filter crappy recruiters who don't read beyond keyword matches.
I get the causes, but the results are corrosive (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm 51 and definitely from the generation that always answered the phone.
I notice as my fellow employees get younger there is much less use of voice calls, with instant messaging and emails being preferred instead. The problem is that these communication methods often seem really inefficient and are as easy to ignore or under-respond to as a phone with a ringer on silent.
We've had problems crop up with clients and you'd never know what the nature and magnitude of them is when you get short texts like "Do you know about the issue at MZR?"
Does either response provide any value? I can answer "Yes" without actually knowing because the dumb text made it seem like there was one. I can answer no and what value does that add to the person asking?
Had they just fucking called we both would have been able to quickly sort out who knew what and who was going to do anything about it.
Re:I get the causes, but the results are corrosive (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm 51 and definitely from the generation that always answered the phone.
I notice as my fellow employees get younger there is much less use of voice calls, with instant messaging and emails being preferred instead. The problem is that these communication methods often seem really inefficient and are as easy to ignore or under-respond to as a phone with a ringer on silent.
We've had problems crop up with clients and you'd never know what the nature and magnitude of them is when you get short texts like "Do you know about the issue at MZR?"
Does either response provide any value? I can answer "Yes" without actually knowing because the dumb text made it seem like there was one. I can answer no and what value does that add to the person asking?
Had they just fucking called we both would have been able to quickly sort out who knew what and who was going to do anything about it.
Well my solution is that I only answer if I recognise the incoming number (family, friends, co-workers and the office). If I don't recognise the number, I let it go to voicemail; if it's important the caller will leave a message and I'll call them back promptly. This way I talk to the people that are important and filter out the rest.
Re:I get the causes, but the results are corrosive (Score:5, Interesting)
Well my solution is that I only answer if I recognise the incoming number (family, friends, co-workers and the office). If I don't recognise the number, I let it go to voicemail; if it's important the caller will leave a message and I'll call them back promptly. This way I talk to the people that are important and filter out the rest.
This. 100% this. If you're in my phone's contact list and your name appears on the screen, I'll answer if I can.
If you leave voicemail, I'll listen.
If neither of these are true and I have time enough to be curious, the number goes into google to see if it's a hit on any of the "who called me" sites. Otherwise, I use the "block caller" function and I never hear from that number again.
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The problem with the current Caller ID system is that this step doesn't do what you think it does. The number you see the spam call as coming from isn't their real number. It's some random number they've put into their calling device (in many cases spoofed to appear as a local call to you). Blocking it doesn't block the telemarketer, it just blocks some random person who happened to have the number the telemarketers cho
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Well my solution is that I only answer if I recognise the incoming number (family, friends, co-workers and the office). If I don't recognise the number, I let it go to voicemail; if it's important the caller will leave a message and I'll call them back promptly. This way I talk to the people that are important and filter out the rest.
This. It's the same way I manage calls. Works great.
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Well my solution is that I only answer if I recognise the incoming number (family, friends, co-workers and the office)
I am the opposite. I only answer the phone if I don't recognize the number because it could be an emergency of some kind. For me that is what voice comms have become: a form of urgent/emergency communication. That loud ringer is like an alarm bell indicating that something is very wrong. Otherwise they would have just texted me. I get very annoyed with friends and family who habitually call me. It is like constantly shouting in my ear. It just makes me want to ignore them. When I pick up I ask, "What happen
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If you're going to lie to the client and and answer yes without knowing anything to shut them up, then is it really that likely that you'd be more helpful otherwise?
Here's a thought: Don't lie and answer "Yes" when you don't actually know anything - assuming you actually want to provide service to your client.
If you don't know, answer something like "No. What's the issue and how big a problem is it for you?" Maybe even add a "Please call if it's serious."
The beauty of texting, in addition to being asynchr
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Let's say you're right, and there's a 50/50 chance of needing a follow up conversation. Great! That means you've avoided an intrusive time-wasting call 50% of the time, by sending a potentially standard pre-typed reply.
Granted, a more informative initial text would be good - but knowing clients/users/etc, a longer text is unlikely to actually be helpful, and even in a conversation it's likely to be a chore to extract useful information.
If nothing else their text is an invitation for you to call them, at *
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A longer text with some description of the nature of the problem would be enormously helpful.
This kind of passive-aggressive short chatting may work for figuring out if you want to have pizza or drinks later, but it's a massive time sink for business communication.
And part of the reason a phone call is so much more efficient is that, especially with technical issues, texts get long and cumbersome.
Telling me about a problem that I may be needed to help with isn't intrusive, it's my job. Short texts actually
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It really depends...
There are straightforward situations that are better resolved through exchange of text. When that happens, the conversation is searchable in the future.
For complex situations with a lot of back and forth, a phone call is warranted. Often alongside a text channel to copy paste things back and forth, or to send a picture or share screen. Always I like to lead this with a text conversation, so I know the context of the conversation going in, and to do things like "I'm in a meeting, I ca
I still answer my phone, most of the time .... (Score:3)
I'm 46 and so also from the generation that was conditioned to pick up a ringing phone. But the reason I still do it today is because of what "swb" says here. There are too many situations where a real time voice conversation gets something resolved efficiently, where the other methods just don't.
With IM and texting, the parties aren't a "captive audience". They can carry on the conversation at their leisure, while doing and thinking about other things. I can't get a quick resolution if it's not a simple ye
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"Emergency" isn't a binary state, I'd argue most client issues are on a continuum of some kind of urgency requiring action of some kind -- even if its just client communication -- within 24 hours, anything same day is likely perceived as an emergency by somebody.
It'd be nice to work in self-enforced isolation, but as part of an organization with clients, it's not possible. Wanting to communicate with a peer, client or vendor isn't rude and thoughtless, it's *communication*.
I think incomplete, barely compre
So it is not only me (Score:3)
For me it is more like 95% that is spam. In the rare event I take the call, the caller either just close the connection (probably expecting me to call again at to number that costs money?) or is the Indian "Microsoft Technical Support" (I must have a lot of virus). It can also be a legitimate insurance companies, or callers from red cross etc.
If I take my phone, I generally just answer with the following line. "No! I am not interested. You may not call this number. Take me off you list". And then I close the line. I do feel it actually started to lower the amount of spam calls after I started saying that.
But mostly I do NOT answer my phone if I don't know the number, or expects a call. I check my email once a day. At most. Same with SMS. I generally leave my phone at my desk when walking around the office. Same at home.
It is fascinating to realize that I am more difficult than ever to get a hold on.
Phone spam is the reason (Score:4)
My solution?
If you're not in my contact list, I'm not answering.
If it's important, leave a message.
If you call me more than twice and don't leave a message, your number is blocked...
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It's because we have a choice (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm older (43) and still tend to answer the phone. But, one thing I do see is that people who don't like talking to people feel they don't have to anymore. There's other non-voice options.
This is especially true in workplaces, where the younger crowd is finally starting to reach the supervisory levels. In tech shops it's all Slack, Teams, IM of one form or another, texting, etc. I actually find myself preferring this, even though I know it's not normal.
I'm not an antisocial nerd, but I'm also not a type-A salesy extrovert either. Talking to people on the phone means uncomfortable small talk, having to manage the conversation, etc. Sending a to-the-point message is much more useful to me. I know extroverts probably love the small talk aspect, but it's something I can live without if I can get my information without it.
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I'm older (43) and still tend to answer the phone. But, one thing I do see is that people who don't like talking to people feel they don't have to anymore. There's other non-voice options.
This is especially true in workplaces, where the younger crowd is finally starting to reach the supervisory levels.
Yes, this. The concerns about spam are sort of an issue, but it's not the dominant issue. It's largely a generational thing. I ignore unknown numbers calling me, but I answer every single known number calling me because I feel it's impolite unless I'm really busy. Then I return the call later.
My pre-teen daughter refuses to call her friends, instead insisting to message them instead. In my generation, there is a feeling that voice conversations, in person visits, and hand-written notes are more persona
SIP Killed the phone (Score:3)
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Nah, SIP just gets the call started. RTP is the REAL reason we have to listen to spammers. ;-)
Chinese language voicemails (Score:2)
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See here:
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/10... [npr.org]
Texting? (Score:4, Insightful)
Texting is fun, lightly asynchronous, and possible to do with many people simultaneously.
I find texting to be a distracting pain in the ass, and if a text thread goes beyond a few messaged in the space of an hour, I'm either placing a call or dropping the thread. Texting is a thoroughly inefficient way of communicating when compared with two-way speech, even if you don't consider that it's WAY harder to text and do something else than it is to talk and do something else.
... words mixed with emoji, Bitmoji, reaction gifs ...
I hate those damned things - they're un-subtle, annoying, tacky, and cheesy. Fortunately, I only get stuck with Emoji - I had to look up the other two for this comment. And if THEY start showing up, I'm going back to a flip phone.
Texting definitely has its uses, and I appreciate what it brought to the party; but it is in NO WAY a substitute for talking, and any graphic elements beyond specific and personal pictures and videos are the ugly garden trolls and velvet paintings of the smartphone world. Now get off of my lawn, dammit!
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I can deal with emojis and use them...but animated GIFs and memes are idiotic and immature.
I know it's the equivalent of an 85-year-old retired English teacher complaining that no one knows proper grammar anymore, but I do think that even in team chat applications this has no place.
Telephones (Score:2)
Telephony is a slow, inefficient medium for the basics of communicating information.
You want me to do something, or tell me something, email me. Text me if I'm mobile, but email will get through. It'll also all be "on the record".
If you don't want it on the record, I don't want to hear it.
At work I have an advertised direct line and I also get calls from a switchboard. I can summarise every phone call I get into a handful of categories:
- People who have techy problems who haven't emailled / ticketed them
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It'll also all be "on the record".
Yeah. This.
I used to work for an outfit that was full of slimeballs that tried to get things done outside of normal channels. And people would go apeshit if they had to leave voicemail, send e-mail or calls were forwarded outside the company system (where they might be recorded or overheard by a third party witness on a speakerphone).
Ringtones only to known people. (Score:2)
I set my default ringtone to silent, and give ringtones to those I know.
Some issues... (Score:2)
Sign up for the Do Not Call list, I've not gotten marketing calls in years (or maybe decades).
Tone of voice gets lost in text miscommunication.
There was a study I recall pointing out most emoji are misinterpreted by the recipient. There's a whole new variety of smilies with stuff on their faces that I have no idea what it's supposed to represent, or what the user intended by it. They just get ignored completely. My SO I just tell I don't know what they meant. If it matters they explain.
But the big thing
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Twitter, Facebook, Slack, FaceTimes? (Score:2)
What?
Except for e-mail: no, not one of them. And none of their alternatives either. None at all. And I'm really happy about it, and I don't plan to change anything about it. Yes, I work in IT.
And no, I don't use the telephone much, either.
On the other hand, in some countries including mine – as others already have reported here – the telephone is still functional, as telephone spammers are
Texting is fun? (Score:2)
Maybe occasionally. Most of the time it's a royal PITA.
Texting is slower than Morse code for most people. The tiny keyboard that phone include make it near impossible to do anything more complicated than sending messages like "Wot U doin" without misspelling just about every word. Texting seems to be the beyond-the-grave revenge of the guy w
it's becoming like snail mail (Score:2)
Back in the day, before electronic bill payment, we would get all of our bills via mail carrier and sit down and write paper checks to pay them. We would check the mailbox every day because there might be something important in there.
Electronic bill payment has replaced all of those paper bills so what are we left with? My mailbox is filled almost entirely with junk mail. Outside of Christmas cards I get almost nothing of value. So I don't feel the need to check the mailbox every day like I used to.
Phone ca
This has got to be a Planet USA shit. (Score:2)
You guys are still paying for incoming calls, right? Here in Europe everyone picks up their phone, all the time, always. If we don't want to be called by a certain number we just add it to the blocking list.
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You guys are still paying for incoming calls, right? Here in Europe everyone picks up their phone, all the time, always. If we don't want to be called by a certain number we just add it to the blocking list.
Paying for incoming calls went away once unlimited calls/text became the norm except for some real cheap plans. Has caller pays and higher rates for mobiles gone away in Europe? that may limit the spam calls more than any laws since it would quickly become uneconomic to robo-spam a lot of numbers.
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In Europe caller pays, always.
Also, in Europe we (usually, but depends on the country) have a no-spam-call list service, and whoever calls a number on that list gets fiercely fined.
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Re:This has got to be a Planet USA shit. (Score:4, Interesting)
In Europe caller pays, always. Also, in Europe we (usually, but depends on the country) have a no-spam-call list service, and whoever calls a number on that list gets fiercely fined.
I’m guessing the caller pays is a bigger deterent as it woukd be tough to find, let alone fine, some non-EU soammer in a third world call center. OTOH, getting billed for thousands of calls would greatly impact or wipe out any profit; or EU telcos simply do not connect calls because they can’t get needed payment data. Alternatively, I’d imagine language to be another barrier as there is no assurance the person called speaks the caller’s language, whereas in the US you are pretty certain of getting an English speaker most of the time.
I haven't answered the phone since 1983 (Score:2)
But seriously, I don't answer calls from unknown sources. They get sent to voicemail. Next, I check the voice mail and if it is indeed someone I never want to talk to I add the number to my contact called Shit List. There are about 300 numbers in that contact. I chose an excellent image to use for the "Shit List" caller: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9f/6... [pinimg.com]
Mainly because I'm probably I'm doing something (Score:2)
I'm not just sitting around twiddling my thumbs, I might be eating a meal or sitting with friends, or in the middle of work.
And there's no reason for me to drop everything just because someone picked this arbitrary point in time to have a conversation.
Chat is a contributor ... (Score:2)
... to fewer calls to businesses.
I love chat.
I can multitask during the session; resolution is mostly timely, and both parties can get on with their day.
Not a moment too soon. (Score:2)
I have never liked the phone, for one simple reason: a phone call is an interruption. The caller is interrupting me, and unless I'm calling a call centre, I'm interrupting someone else. I worked in a call centre for a while, both making and taking calls, and saw how massively inefficient the whole call handling business is; all the wasted time and frustration that goes along with that.
Apart from prearranged calls, I now view phone calls as for emergencies only, mostly for things that genuinely cannot wait a
do-nothing registry (Score:2)
My land line is there for 911 backup only (Score:2)
Unavailable (Score:2)
Just one more attack vector to endure (Score:2)
commentsubject (Score:3)
Answer your phone with a muted microphone.
Human callers will issue their confused "Hello?" calls into the void, identifying themselves as authentic.
Software could easily note speech on the other end, note an unexpected mid-call termination (you hung up) marking your number as a legitimate (and more importantly, active) data point. This is valuable information internally, maybe even enough to sell.
Even a voice synth "Hello." isn't that hard to identify. Answer muted, put the phone away, let the robot rant until it hangs up.
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now think completely disconnected and antisocial behaviour is acceptable. Don’t care? See how that works out for you long run.
I agree. I just had a conversation with a support employee who works for me yesterday. I told them to get out of their desk and walk to the customer's desk and give them an update on the situation IN PERSON. They were at a loss to see why a simple text or email wasn't good enough. True customer service is becoming a lost art because of this new disconnected mentality.
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I told them to get out of their desk and walk to the customer's desk
B...b...but I'm sitting in Starbucks right now.
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The telcos don't care either way, they make money regardless.
How, exactly? If SIP/overseas calls cost the originator zero, what's in it for my local telco?
The solution would be for the telco to allow SIP calls through their gateway but restrict the caller ID/ANI feature to paying customers. And then restrict the use of alternate identities (phone numbers) to a pool of numbers that the originating caller is paying for. No more spoofing a local exchange number by telemarketers for free. And if one telco becomes lax about enforcing this by passing bogus calls through t
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Even if you shut down one robocall center, three more pop up in its place. The telcos don't care either way, they make money regardless. The government regulators aka the FCC are too busy giving the telco executives handjobs to actually care about consumers.
That's the enforcement problem.
If you shut down the robocall place with a 2000 pound bomb, it's much less likely 3 more would pop up in its place. Drone strikes for justice! Of course, that would require politicians actually caring about voters, so this is all idle fantasy.
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Perhaps the U.S. authorities should try enforcing the law and apply pressure to foreign phone companies. They're too busy kicking in doors for minor drug offenses here to bother with things that actually affect people.
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I reduce the problem by having a different ringtone for unknown callers, and a voice message that tells people I screen unknown callers and please leave a message. If I get a message I know it immediately and can check, and it's rarely spam (political robocalls notwithstanding). Perhaps I've missed out on an old flame calling to reunite and chickening out at the message, but I doubt it. And when my friends change their number, or call from another phone, they generally still reach me within minutes of pl
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