It's no secret that people are talking on the phone less. We're texting, we're emailing, we're Gchatting, we're Facebooking. There have been many articles bemoaning the death of the phone call in recent months, and Nielsen said in a December report that voice calls have dropped by 12 percent since 2009, while text messaging has absolutely blown up.
With no dearth of mediums on which to communicate, our attentions are divided. But is it possible that we've developed an actual fear of talking on the phone?
Salon's Sarah Hepola argues that this so-called Telephobia is a very real thing.
With no dearth of mediums on which to communicate, our attentions are divided. But is it possible that we've developed an actual fear of talking on the phone?
Salon's Sarah Hepola argues that this so-called Telephobia is a very real thing.
A good portion of that is, in fact, crazy talk. We are constantly inundated with information about other people. Pictures from their vacations, posts about their ailing grandmothers, rants about their horrible bosses. Sometimes you just want to flip off the noise. Are we over-saturated? Yes. But are we actually so scared of human contact that we can't stomach a phone call?It's just plain scary to talk to other people. We avoid it not because people don't matter—but because they do. And each of us brings emotional baggage to to these interactions. when my phone rings, and I don't recognize that number—forget it. I'm too scarred by the years I spent dodging credit card companies to take that kind of dare. I also don't jump off cliffs, or do cartwheels on the highway. In fact, it's amazing to me that there was a time when the phone rang, and someone just answered it. Who could it be? Could it be the guy who was currently making your heart pound? Oooh, let's pick it up and find out! Now, when I see an unfamiliar number, I feel nothing but outrage.
Telephobia is hogwash. The truth is, it's an excuse for the fact that communicating has gotten easier, and a by-product of that is we've gotten lazier. More here.
5 comments:
Society on a whole really is changing and changing rapidly at that so this is very interesting to read. It's a shame the telephone call is on the downturn though, if you can't meet someone face to face you could at least make the effort to talk with them voice to voice.
I couldn´t have fear of talking on the phone. Need my phone everyday.
But phone calls are so annoying, with a text it can sit there until the person has time to read it.
Not to mention phone calls are almost like actually talking to a person, totally boring.
Interesting post, thanks for sharing!
I get annoyed when I have a missed call and have to go through the annoying voicemail system and listen to all the previous missed calls that left messages. Texting is so much easier.
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