Does anyone answer the phone anymore?

[Rudynate]

I used to answer my office phone most of the time.  I just hired a service to manage my calls for me.  I'm already distractable enough without the added burden of junk phone calls.

[xyz48B]

I’ve used distinctive rings before. It actually worked well. I should do that again. Thanks for reminding me. 

[+ tassojunior]

THE pits is when you have Gen Z  friends who routinely try to Facetime or video call you. If you want to know panic wait until you get a "Incoming video call" flashup from a young hottie. 

As an "over 39er" I make it clear no video calls. I do consider that an invasion of privacy. My privacy to be old and unkempt. These 20-somethings don't understand that yet. 

What shitty luck to get old just as Facetimeing takes over. It would have been great at 20. 

 

Ever notice how all old people look like this on Facetime?

Edited February 19, 2022 by tassojunior

[+ WilliamM]

I enjoy Facetime, but also enjoy old fashioned phone calls because occasionally I can do something else while talking on the horn

[xyz48B]

I don’t like FaceTime except with my nephew. I’ve done FaceTime with a few providers but only to see they’re not whackadoodles. Such calls are max 2 minutes. 

[jeezifonly]

I have a houseboy who’s VERY good at it

so, no

[xyz48B]

I want a houseboy 😭 

[Luv2play]

I've had a landline at my residences for over 50 years. Sometimes a couple when I had two residences simultaneously.

I only got a smart phone 3 years ago and it has changed my ways of communicating but I have not dropped having a landline. 

I don't use caller ID and will answer the phone if it is convenient. Otherwise I have voicemail. The number of crank calls has declined markedly in the last several years which I credit the phone companies with cracking down under federal pressure in Canada.

I am a member of several volunteer organizations so like to be able to call and receive calls from members and other parties using the services of the organizations I belong to. My cell phone has made communication even more efficient.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Luv2play

[n2guysnatl]

[+ Charlie]

During the pandemic, FaceTime has turned out to be an excellent way for me to interact with doctors who do telemedicine. Otherwise, I rarely use it.

[+ Tygerscent]

I rely on texting often throughout the day~ It’s fast communication, doesn’t require immediate response and I can multitask, (essential in my world).

 I very rarely ever answer a phone call. Sometimes a person will call through to me that I know would only be calling me in an emergency situation and I answer the phone immediately.

 I also very rarely email anymore. It’s just time consuming and cumbersome. I remember a time before texting where I was spending anywhere from 6 to 8 hours per day writing to people~ and then I would be waiting for a response back from them to which I would have to provide another response. We were having ongoing communication but, it was really slow.

 I found that when I was talking to people on the phone sometimes I’d be on the phone with them for 2,3,4 hours at a time~  Two phone calls a day can really take up a lot of time. 
 During any given day, (with exception to when working or with a Client), I can be texting up to 15 different people sometimes more, sometimes less~ It depends on what’s going on at the moment~ If I’m with a Client I’m obviously not texting anybody and certainly not talking on the phone or emailing people~ It would be completely inappropriate.
 I also find it more inappropriate to talk to people on the phone when I’m eating, on a bus, train, plane, airport, with other people, grooming, shopping… often the topics that come into conversations on phone calls that I encounter are inappropriate for the general public.

 Texting provides that discretion that is appropriate for most occasions and again… I stress the benefit of being able to multitask. Of the things I mentioned in the above paragraph, I can do all of those and more while texting but, not on the phone.

 In person I’m pretty chatty~ The texting adds a lot of context to in person convo that I wouldn’t be able to accomplish on the phone or through email simply because of time restraints, location and timing, (time zone differences I often encounter)~
 
 Another added benefit to texting is I can send pictures to people and that’s even quicker than an entire conversation… No matter where I am in the world I can send somebody a picture and let them know what’s going on: adventure, diving, hang gliding, hiking, dining, symphony, concert, working out, laying in bed, sitting on the toilet… etc~ 

 I can share things silently and respect that silence… I’ve actually come to find it rude and intrusive when I’m in a public place and some person is on their phone with earbuds in and they’re practically screaming into their phone sharing their conversation with everybody around them. It’s so loud one can’t possibly get away from their conversation and their space. It’s especially annoying if they’re having an argument with somebody, talking about business issues or chatting romantically. 
 
 Despite being dedicated to texting, when I’m with somebody I’m not texting at all.  
 Those conversations have to wait because, my time with somebody/anybody is valuable… I consider our time together as being personal and valuable.

Sometimes I may be with a Client and we look together on our phones at videos, music, funny things, trip planning~ That’s OK… Sometimes we have a lot of fun doing that but, when it starts feeling like we’re getting too absorbed into the phone thing, I redirect us away from it. 
 I’m pretty much of a minimalist when it comes to technology in the broad sense. I use a computer maybe twice a year. I do almost everything on my phone including my taxes, filing for visas and paying all my bills. I’ve never owned a microwave, a stereo or a television. While I don’t cook on my phone, I do have music on there that I stream for appointments and I do watch Korean movies and a lot of Indian and Asian cinema on my phone at random times.
 I haven’t had a landline since 2001.
 
 

 

[+ Tygerscent]

3 hours ago, n2guysnatl said:

 

[+ Tygerscent]

7 hours ago, jeezifonly said:

I have a houseboy who’s VERY good at it

so, no

Your house boy is a merman~ 

[mike carey]

6 hours ago, n2guysnatl said:

I remember seeing a version of this question with LinkedIn being listed just after 'climb in through my bedroom window'.

[+ Pensant]

I use the “silence unknown caller” on my iPhone. 90% of voicemail is from car warranty scammers. Immediately deleted.

Although the vast amount of communication is by SMS or WhatsApp, I do have real conversations with family and close friends, many of whom are Millennials. With first-time providers, texts followed up by a call, which most appreciate. I don’t leave explicit information in texts.

[+ tassojunior]

13 hours ago, Charlie said:

During the pandemic, FaceTime has turned out to be an excellent way for me to interact with doctors who do telemedicine. Otherwise, I rarely use it.

With Kaiser I find it takes a long time to set up a video call appointment and then when they call you for it the doctor takes forever to come on. I just take a pic and email it. 

[Rudynate]

21 hours ago, tassojunior said:

THE pits is when you have Gen Z  friends who routinely try to Facetime or video call you. If you want to know panic wait until you get a "Incoming video call" flashup from a young hottie. 

As an "over 39er" I make it clear no video calls. I do consider that an invasion of privacy. My privacy to be old and unkempt. These 20-somethings don't understand that yet. 

What shitty luck to get old just as Facetimeing takes over. It would have been great at 20. 

 

Ever notice how all old people look like this on Facetime?

That's how old people look generally - not just on Facetime.

[+ tassojunior]

6 minutes ago, Rudynate said:

That's how old people look generally - not just on Facetime.

I think the joke is they don't see the little self-cam window well enough to know they're pointing too high. 

[xyz48B]

Doctors always act like theirs is the time that’s valuable.

I’ve been “fake” texts more and more. Like the emails we used to get from Nigerian princes. I get texts like that now. Not nearly as frequent as the emails were, though. 

[+ cougar]

I have a land line for my security system. I never answer when it rings because anyone who knows me will call my cell. It is included with my internet, so not a big expense.

I am a Boomer and I still enjoying talking on the phone with friends as I am single and do not have many friends in the city I live in. I have lived here for 35 years and all of my friends have either moved away or we just lost contact, and then Covid made the isolation more intense. 

I always answer my cell when it rings as that happens very infrequently, but texting has elevated to the higher level.

[Guest]

On 2/19/2022 at 11:47 AM, Rudynate said:

...I'm already distractable enough without the added burden of junk phone calls.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Unicorn

[samhexum]

[Isrhunter]

No usually it is a spam or robot calling