• Otter
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    8923 days ago

    I don’t think anyone answers the phone now, unless they recognize the number.

    Most of the calls I get are

    • spam
    • spam
    • someone sent me a time sensitive message, so they ring me once to respond faster
    • spam
    • @[email protected]
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      23 days ago

      Yeah, I’m early gen-x and I only answer the phone if its a member of my immediate family and even then it’s 50/50. Capitalism ruins everything. Need to talk to me? Leave a message and I’ll decide if and when to call you back.

      • @[email protected]
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        2223 days ago

        Everyone I want to talk to knows not to call me; I feel exactly the same. Phones used to be useful, but the sheer volume of telemarketers and scams have reduced it to uselessness. If it wasn’t for 2FA occasionally requiring a phone number, I wouldn’t even have one at this point.

    • Maestro
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      1423 days ago

      American? I’m from The Netherlands and I get maybe 1 spam call every other month or so. And I’ve been using the same number for almost 25 years.

      • Otter
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        923 days ago

        Canada, we face the same issues as the US for telecom stuff

      • @[email protected]
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        623 days ago

        Must be nice to a functional telecommunications agency that has the tools to punish soammers.

        • @[email protected]
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          322 days ago

          Oh we do too. Verizon and att make money off of selling the scammers our phone numbers and they wont spend the money to stop it

    • metaStatic
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      1323 days ago

      Settings>Do not disturb>exceptions>Caller in contacts

      alt: Set default ringtone to silent, no vibration, Set people in contacts to custom ringtones.

    • Otter
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      3123 days ago

      This is part of the problem for me. I can’t dismiss the popup unless I hang up, and I don’t want to do that in case my number gets marked as “active”.

      So I sit there and wait till I can use it again.

      Also I appreciate the detailed alt text :)

      • @[email protected]
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        322 days ago

        Yet Another Call Blocker solves that problem.

        I send all calls other than contacts directly to voice mail, and my phone never even rings.

      • @[email protected]
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        23 days ago

        Let it ring. Robocall centers only work when they maximize volume, the more time they spend not getting an answer the more money they’re not making. If you wanna get real saucy, wait as long as you can, accept the call, say nothing or mute your mic. They wont spend more than 5-10 seconds before they hang up on you though because they know it too.

        • Dave.
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          823 days ago

          Letting it ring has no impact. They have autodiallers that call, and when someone picks up, only then is that call assigned to someone in the call centre.

          You can often tell this because there is a marked delay in the response to your initial “Hello?”. Long enough that you can reliably just hang up if you don’t hear a response in two seconds.

          If it’s a real person who actually wants to call you and they you call again straight away, you can just shrug off your hang-up as a network issue.

    • @[email protected]
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      422 days ago

      That’s why I just block all calls and send them to voicemail.

      If we need a phone call, we’ll schedule it, and we’ll be using an app.

  • @[email protected]
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    5623 days ago

    I am Gen X (1970 give or take a couple of years) and I don’t answer shit. I look up numbers and rarely listen to Voicemails. If you know me and I want to talk to you, you will know how to reach me. Everyone else can get fucked.

    I think it’s less generational and more fuck all this spam and scams.

    • Beej Jorgensen
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      923 days ago

      I’m the same generation. My flowchart is: known contact, answer. Unknown contact, voicemail. Automatic VM transcriptions are great.

    • @[email protected]
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      522 days ago

      Gen X’er. Same here. I don’t even leave the ringer turned on on my phone. Fuck that shit. If you know me too know how to find me.

  • 𝚝𝚛𝚔
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    23 days ago

    “A voice note is just like talking on the phone but better,” says Susie Jones, a 19-year-old student. “You get the benefits of hearing your friend’s voice but comes with no pressures so it’s a more polite way of communicating”.

    Gross, voice notes are the worst of both worlds.

    Text for things that are information critical, phone calls for things that are time critical.

    Email for business (and keep the original chain going instead of starting a new one every time you think of something else to add!), text messages for associates, chat apps for friends and family.

    Anyone who disagrees is wrong.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 days ago

      Yeah, voice notes are the “your solution to your problem is somewhere in the middle of this 20 minute long YouTube video that could have been a short forum post instead” of the communication world.

      • @[email protected]
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        222 days ago

        Jesus, it’s not just me! It seems like every answer I need is only found in a video format without labeled bookmarks/sections. I hate it so much. Give me a how-to with concise instructions and gifs, or give me death.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 days ago

          Can’t get ad revenue on a short, concise, and helpful page.

          Even a basic cookie recipe requires someone’s whole life story to fill in the blank space between 10 ads

    • Pika
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      21 days ago

      I’ve actively told any friend that send me a voice note that if you want me to respond to you don’t send it as a voice note, I won’t listen to it. It requires me to put headphones in or play it on speaker, and neither of those are happening unless it’s important.

      hard agree, voice messages are the worst of both worlds, you can’t look at it and get the gist of what’s said, and you have to deal with listening to it, while requiring more bandwidth to use.

      I’ve told my friends instead of pressing the voice button, just press the speech to text button, I’m more likely to read a wall of text than listen to a voice message.

    • @[email protected]
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      123 days ago

      I mostly agree, but I think voice notes for close friends/family probably have a point.

      At this point, I would also argue that texts/emails are also for time critical things since voice calls are essentially dead at this point.

      99.99999% of the phone calls I get are spam. I haven’t gotten a new voice mail in like 6 months.

  • @[email protected]
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    4522 days ago

    A recent survey found a quarter of people aged 18 to 34 never answer the phone - respondents say they ignore the ringing, respond via text or search the number online if they don’t recognise it.

    As they should.

  • @[email protected]
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    4022 days ago

    Both phone calls and emails are so full of ad-ridden garbage that they are useless for communication.

    Texts are better signal-to-noise ratio, for me it is more like only 1% con artist identity thieves compared to the 99% coming via phone call.

    • @[email protected]
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      622 days ago

      I don’t know if phone call spam is only an American thing or something. In my country (and most of Europe) that stuff is effectively banned and doesn’t really happen.

      Still hate getting calls though.

      • bountygiver [any]
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        522 days ago

        having proper bans in place do help, cutting number spoofing and rooting out local spam sources + barring voips that facilitate them means spam callers would have to connect internationally and cost more.

  • @[email protected]
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    3023 days ago

    I can’t speak for others but as an older millennial, I grew up liking spending time on the phone with friends and loved ones. However in my adult life, I spent being anxious waiting for phone calls regarding job interviews and outcomes of them, and even being interviewed on some of them, including those without much notice. I also had to make calls to follow up things urgently or if I’m in trouble. As a result, I started to equate phone calls as mostly negative experiences.

  • @[email protected]
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    2923 days ago

    99% of phone calls is typically a capitalistic company forcing employees to sell us something.

    So yes… I’m not gonna pick up. Leave a voicemail 👍

    • @[email protected]
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      922 days ago

      99% of phone calls is typically a capitalistic company forcing employees using chatbots to sell us something.

      employees are so 2010, FIFY

  • queermunist she/her
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    2823 days ago

    Meanwhile, boomers will spend hours talking to a ChatGPT script that has convinced them its the real Oprah Winfrey.

  • @[email protected]
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    2821 days ago

    It’s pretty obvious why lol.

    90% of the calls I receive are spam.

    Calling demands that I pick up the phone RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. Bitch, if it ain’t a life threatening emergency I’m not dropping everything I’m working on for you.

    Texting allows me to respond when it’s convenient for me.

    Text generally takes 3 seconds to get the point across instead of having a whole conversation about it

    • @[email protected]
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      721 days ago

      God, or worse, a conversation around the conversation you’re actually speaking in order to have

  • @[email protected]
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    2423 days ago

    Everyone I need to talk to is in my contacts. If you’re not in my contacts, my phone doesn’t even ring. You go straight to voicemail.

    I was fine with phone calls when I was younger. Now it’s mostly spam robocalls or scammers or both. Nobody seems interested in solving those problems.

    • @[email protected]
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      722 days ago

      I am interested in solving them. Here’s how: if you get any phone call that makes you even the slightest bit irritated, you hit a button and receive a quarter paid by the caller. This is traced through carriers. If the trace cannot continue for any reason or exits US jurisdiction, the most recent carrier foots the bill. I guarantee that spam calls will suddenly cease to exist overnight.

      • @[email protected]
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        522 days ago

        I like the way you think.

        This kind of approach solves so many problems, as the vendors have a vested interest

  • @[email protected]
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    23 days ago

    honestly i think this is due to unplanned voice calls essentially being broken technology now.

    imagine we had 2020s email spammers while mail servers had 1990s spam filters, that’s basically where we’re at now with unplanned voice.

  • Max-P
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    1623 days ago

    Texting is also damn convenient, I can deal with several conversations at once without having to pause the movie I’m watching.

    Speaking on the phone doesn’t just tie your line, it ties your whole life too.

    • @[email protected]
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      323 days ago

      Another advantage of text, for me at least, is that I can read much faster than I can listen. This is why I prefer text articles to news videos, even though video can often offer extra visual information over what photographs can offer.

      That said, I do somewhat agree with the article’s concern that live conversation is an independent skill and potentially has its own unique side-benefits that might be becoming rarer.

  • Drusas
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    1422 days ago

    I’m an older millennial. I enjoyed talking on the phone until I was something like 12. Texting wasn’t a big thing yet then, but messengers on the internet were. So I realized there were better ways of communicating.

    When I was in college, I was hit by a car. I was poor and had no health insurance. That led to endless calls from debt collectors. That led to anxiety related to the sound of a phone ringing. I have not answered the phone to unknown numbers since then. My life is better for it.

    I only occasionally listen to voicemail, and most of the time, it’s a doctor’s appointment automated reminder. The rest of the time, it’s usually spam. No point listening.

    Anyone who knows me and needs or wants to get in touch with me knows how to do so and knows not to do so by phone call. Anyone else is unimportant.

    • @[email protected]
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      422 days ago

      Also older millennial. I found a two minute star wars themed wait message that i recorded and am using. The number of VMs from spam I receive is practically zero. Number of VMs from Publishers Clearing? Unfortunately also zero.