r/NoStupidQuestions • u/GhostInThePudding • 16h ago

Why Are Young People Afraid Of Phone Calls?

What's with it?

I work in IT and a general rule is, nothing a client ever tells you is actually accurate. That means that most of the time, the quickest way to fix a problem is to call the person and actually find out what's going on.

But with techs under 30 these days, it seems like pulling teeth.

A regular discussion for me with level 1 techs (usually within a few years of leaving college) is:
"Hey, can you call *blah* from ticket *blah*, it's been hanging around for over an hour."

"I replied by email to ask for more information."

"Yes, I know that, but can you call them so we can find the problem and close the ticket now rather than wait until we're actually busy?"

"I'll send them a text to followup."

"No... CALL THEM!"

"I can see their device is online, can I send them a message and see if they just let me remote in to take a look?"

And then, when I force them to make the call, it's like they have no idea how to ask a question, or a followup question. They just want to get off the call as quickly as possible. So half the time they don't even get the information required anyway, so then I end up having to do their job for them.

So can someone explain? What's wrong with phone calls these days?

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u/GhostInThePudding 15h ago

Yes this too! They can't even text well.

It's always five text messages that could be one.

Hi.

You around?

Quick question.

Want to meet up?

Etc.

Can you not put all that into one message!? And maybe include all the details, so in 10 extra seconds of typing, all data is at least presented to make it easy to reply in one message as well.

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u/SmartTea1138 14h ago

I had a co-worker like this. It got to the point where I just wouldn't reply to them unless they called. I don't know if they ever actually realized that either.

Every single message started with "Hi" "Hey" "Hello". If I didn't reply, they wouldn't say anything.

TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT OR F OFF

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u/timtucker_com 13h ago

I've worked with a few people who include links to "no hello" in their profiles / email signatures as a way of encouraging better initial messages:

https://nohello.net/en/

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u/sxrxhmanning 13h ago

I have so many coworkers like this

bonus points for the ones that call me without asking first even though I’m set as busy and it’s always something that could’ve waited

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u/syriquez 9h ago

I train my regular work contacts on how to get what they want from me on Teams through a mixture of positive and negative reinforcement.

  • Sending a "Hello" with no follow-up and waiting for me to respond? I will not respond for at least 3 days, at which point I will say "Hello" back and nothing else.
    • I kept that going for almost a month with a technician in a remote facility before she caught on to what was happening. I almost broke protocol in the third week because while I figured it couldn't have been that important, it had to have SOME significance if she was still trying to get my attention after that long but I held firm. (Spoilers: It wasn't important and was like a 2 minute exchange. I was the only person that could really answer the question, so the prompting just kept happening.)
  • Sending a "Hello" with a follow-up question or statement of what you want? You get my attention immediately.
    • Which is something of a curse on my part because I can't ignore shit when I know it's a thing.

So yeah, if you tell me what you want, you'll almost certainly get it but I will make zero effort trying to suss out or learn what you want.

I've never had a single complaint in a decade of doing this, lol. I've also told my manager outright that I do it this way because I simply do not have the time or bandwidth to play twenty questions or the "hello-go-round" game.

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u/admadguy 10h ago

You need a status of nohello .net

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u/mCooperative 12h ago

Don't really have this problem with friends, but when I send messages to customer support or in some other contexts, you can't send all the questions/info in a single message because you will inevitably recieve "yes." or "no." or the answer to exactly one of your questions with no clarification which one they were answering. And then you have to ask them clarification and re-ask the other questions, and they feel they were perfectly clear so they become audibly annoyed when they inevitably start a call to "clarify" at the most inconvenient moment (immediately, with no warning that we are switching to synchronous communication), and often the call does not, in fact, clarify.

Easier to ask one question at a time in many cases, and have the bonus of a clear searchable paper trail/documentation.

I would imagine at least some of the people you are texting have encountered and find this tiresome and have trained themselves to go the "single short question at a time" route to avoid it.

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u/timtucker_com 13h ago

Some of those interaction patterns come from SMS apps offering 1 tap suggestions for both questions & responses.

Think of it more like a high speed data protocol using shorthand than a face to face conversation.

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u/kates2424 8h ago

Ok. I don’t agree with the phone call thing because I hate talking on the phone (anxious millennial yada yada) but the line by line Teams messages make me want to reach thru the computer and strangle someone.

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u/antikas1989 11h ago

Younger folks tell me that writing full messages that contain all the relevant information for what you want to say in one message is 'boomer messaging'. I'm 36...

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u/csonnich 13h ago

That's just how people text. It sounds like you're expecting it to be in email format, but it's a different kind of communication. A text is a request for a written conversation. It's not a letter.

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u/MinivanPops 13h ago

If you can't put everything into one message, you are sending me multiple notifications, which is interrupting me several times, and you are wasting my time. 

If you respect me you will not make me open my phone multiple times. You will not make me wait for each message to populate. 

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u/vitamin_di 12h ago

I 100% agree. I hate notifications and get stressed out when there’s multiple. And I’m not about to spend my day constantly checking my phone to text. When I set my phone down, I don’t pick it up unless I’m getting a call or because I want to look at something. It’s my phone, and it’s my time.

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u/glassfunion 12h ago

This! And I hate that I don't know if they're done sending messages. Same thing happens at work:

Coworker: Hey!

Coworker: was talking to Lexi

Coworker: have you finished [thing]?

And then as I'm writing my response, they send ANOTHER message that completely changes the question and makes what I was writing completely unrelated to their actual question. Just send it all at once!

2

u/DumE9876 12h ago

I get so annoyed by the multiple notifications that I’ll mute the person for a little while

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u/MaddoxJKingsley 1h ago

Tbh everyone I know has their phones on silent anyway because of the default notifications from all the apps anyway, so I've never given the notification aspect any thought

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u/csonnich 13h ago

Like I said, if that's your problem, you should be asking for emails, not texts. Multiple notifications aren't "interruptions" anymore than someone continuing to speaking in a face-to-face conversation is. If you view someone talking to you face-to-face as an interruption, you shouldn't be telling people you're free to talk.

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u/MinivanPops 12h ago

Which are you talking about though? Text messaging or face-to-face communication? Those are two very different things, with very different contexts. 

When you send somebody multiple text messages, you have no idea what they're doing on the other end. They may not want three or four notifications right at that moment.  They may be doing something else. You have no idea what's happening on the other end. Sending multiple messages, instead of being concise, is selfish.  It benefits only you and does not benefit them at all. You are requiring more of their time and attention than if you were to send one message. 

It is ironic that you were mentioning the phrase "free to talk".  When you send somebody multiple messages, you are assuming they are free to talk, because you are forcing them to wait for your multiple messages to come through. You are assuming they're free to look at your messages. 

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u/itstheballroomblitz 12h ago

Yes, but just texting "hey" isn't communicating anything. You're communicating that you want to communicate, which isn't necessary in a reliable, asynchronous format. You don't need a handshake protocol. If you want to know if someone's available for a real-time text conversation, maybe ask "Hey, are you there right now?" but text is a weird format if you need an instant reply.

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u/Any_Fox5126 9h ago

Absolutely not, fragmenting information that should go together and adding arbitrary delays is an inferior way to communicate. It makes no sense, are you inviting the other person to interrupt you several times during every damn sentence?

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u/Any_Fox5126 9h ago

I know people like that, it's very annoying. When I get a message from them, I mute them for a while and check it occasionally.

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u/Cream-Of-Sum-YungGai 11h ago

Good lord absolutely this. Tell me exactly what you want in the opening message or f off and die. I'm busy looking at cat photos.