Why The Phone Sucks

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When discussing the influence of internet on culture, people often use phrases like ‘our always-on world’ or ‘instant [something]’, or general terminology suggesting that the main reason internet use is altering the way people communicate is because of speed, like, somehow creating a generation of people who seem unable to wait for information due to the fact they have become habituated to getting it immediately.

But perhaps the most useful and exciting consequence of the rise of connected, text-based communication is the fact that it has allowed people to at last eradicate the horrible and terrifying prospect of ‘talking on the phone to people’. Perhaps ironically, it’s only since internet communication surged in prevalence, rapidly becoming for many the ‘preferred’ medium of interaction, that it’s become evident why talking on the phone sucks so much.

Contradicting popular assumption that the internet is compelling because of its immediacy, talking on the phone sucks because it forces immediacy. On the internet one is assumed to be multitasking or navigating web pages; no one expects an instantaneous response to an email or IM [unless they are one of those really annoying people who will ‘follow up’ with you repeatedly despite being aware that you are a busy individual and whatever they want to email you about is not particularly important nor does it particularly necessitate a reply].

The nature of online communication allows you to pretend you’re not there when you are IMed by someone with whom you do not want to chat, and there is nothing that the person can do to prove that you were both present at your computer and not too occupied to talk. For all they know you left yourself signed into Gchat while you went into the other room to watch television or left the house entirely. For all they know you signed into Gchat via your mobile device while engaged in an important meeting or relevant social event and were unable to reply to their message.

For all they know you totally really do want to chat with them but are working, and for all they know your chat might simply be ‘busted ‘due to being signed in simultaneously from a work machine, a home laptop, a mobile ‘smartphone’ and also a tablet device such as an iPad and you totally fucked the system and now you can’t get any IMs at all.

In fact, it’s considered unseemly to inquire about whether someone got your IM or your email. Doing so makes you look strikingly lonesome, or causes you to appear to be a person who is not also busy,  frequently out of the house being normal, fielding various instant messages from a number of people, or multitasking in several essential Chrome browser tabs.

It is also unseemly because behaving as if you have an assured right to receive an internet reply from someone assumes that you consider yourself important to them – when in fact if you were, you could use the most direct communication route possible: The text message.

If you have the ability to text message someone – and not just the mechanical ability, such as their telephone number and a phone that is able to send and receive text messages but also the social ability/permission, i.e. a relationship in which it’s universally understood that text messaging would be considered necessary/appropriate/welcome – it is assumed that only then are you relevant enough to the individual to say intimate things like ‘are you coming to this thing tonight’ or ‘probably getting there at like 9’ or ‘ahhhh wtf is with this day’.

This creates a system of conducting nearly all communication via text-based messages that one can choose to ignore or not, and then always have a reason for having ignored should they ever be ‘called out’[‘wtf I’m not avoiding you I totally want to hang out with you again, you just usually text while I’m at work, I can’t text at work, oh well last night when you texted me I was in the shower and then my friend came over and I just forgot uh why are you being so crazy’] .

The result of this system rapidly becoming the dominant communication paradigm is that the immediacy of the telephone has become increasingly terrifying. People who were once slightly anxious about making a phone call or being put on the spot by receiving a phone call are now properly frightened and take steps to avoid it, by conducting all business via email and by sending incoming calls to voicemail which they avoid until there is a looming and sinister notification blotting the voicemail icon on one’s phone screen.

You then feel a mounting panic when a robotic voice declares some intimidating double-digit number of unheard messages and in order to just delete them and get it over with, you  must be treated to a rapid-fire slideshow of everyone you have ‘sent to voicemail’ and ignored over the past 2-3 months until the visual icon [or the mental reminder looming, an ever-weightier canopy] prompted you to buckle down and deal with it.

The robotic voice recites you through a litany of ‘Hi [name], this is [a different name], I was just—‘ and then ‘Hi [name], my name is [name] from [terrifying-sounding organization possibly related to money you owe]’ and then ‘Hey  honey, this is Mom again, call me,’ resulting in a seizure of guilt as you realize your avoidance of the telephone has even prompted you to ignore your own family until you are ready to call them sometime.

Having to finally check the voicemail and experiencing the resulting knot of impatience, anger and fear at the tinny blaring from of this ancient repository of voices is the second-worst consequence of having to use the phone in the internet age. The worst is when you know you absolutely have to pick up the phone, because someone you haven’t seen in a long time says ‘I’ll call you’ and you want to hear from them too much to say ‘no, text me, I almost never answer the phone’, or when something employment-related or finance-related will soon be occurring which forces you to answer every call from every unknown number that comes up on your phone.

The following things could happen: You could say ‘hello’ in a weird way like ‘hellu’ or ‘haulo’ or something artificial and nasally, and then while you were thinking about how weird you sounded while greeting the caller you won’t hear who the caller said they were, which means you have to say ‘I’m sorry who’s calling again? I didn’t catch—‘ and then while you are trying to say ‘I didn’t catch that’ they say it again and the collision of sound requires that you ask them yet a third time and now things are horribly awkward as both parties wonder who should pause first.

Then you wonder if you sounded a clipped or terse or bitchy and whether you should insert laughter so they know you’re not trying to be a jerk to them and then they are talking and you don’t know when it’s really your turn to talk and then you just keep hearing your own voice feeding back to you god it’s horrible so you pretend to be busy so you can get off the phone but right when you are about to explain why you have to go the call gets dropped, leading you to wonder ‘did they think I just hung up on them, should I call back and explain I did not hang up on them’ or ‘did they know the call got dropped and are they going to call back again’, so you sit there anxiously staring at the phone afraid to do anything else like go to the bathroom like you need to in case they call back, plagued by a horrible vision of being on the toilet as your phone roars to life again with the person calling right back and what if you don’t answer, they might leave a voicemail and then what the fuck are you supposed to do.

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image – Simon Inns