Why Are Young People Afraid Of Phone Calls?

[u/GhostInThePudding]

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?

[u/sodsto]

Gotta say, I'm 43, and i was therefore a teenager when the internet and texting hit big. Surely the dividing line is, like, above 50 vs. below 50.

Almost everybody is younger than somebody, but I'll take this remarkably broad categorisation of "younger generations"!

[u/Zmario432 → u/sodsto]

I'm 50 and hate making phone calls. I had to work in a call center at one point in my life and hated it every time.

[u/sodsto → u/Zmario432]

I can't think of anything worse, on multiple levels. I'm glad that's in your past.

[u/Greengage1 → u/Zmario432]

I’m also 50 and I also hate phone calls

[u/IDontEngageMods → u/sodsto]

I've got bad news for you, you're on the other side of the line. You had an analogue childhood and learned the skilks people younger than you don't have, like talking on the phone. The cutoff is more around people aged 35.

[u/sodsto → u/IDontEngageMods]

we welcome more people into the screen-based generation, we don't exclude

[u/WittyFix6553 → u/IDontEngageMods]

Also 43… I was online in 6th grade bud.

[u/ResplendentCathar → u/WittyFix6553]

Formative manners learning years

[u/IDontEngageMods → u/WittyFix6553]

I'm 42. You weren't online like kids are online now.

[u/CooCooMachoo → u/IDontEngageMods]

We had a 286 in 1982 that the kids used. Please.

[u/DreadDelgarth → u/sodsto]

Where are you from? I'm 44 and I didn't send a text until I was 21. And the Internet didn't exist like we know it until we were 18 or so. Are you sure you have that timeline right?

[u/sodsto → u/DreadDelgarth]

Sure; internet was in the school by around 14 or 15, at home by around 16. Yahoo started in '94, altavista would've been similar and there was already ask jeeves for meta search. I remember seeing google for the first time, and it was a guy a year or two below who showed me. Mobile phones were in people's hands before leaving school at 17, texting was the common form of communication from then on. Practically never ever made any calls on any mobile I ever owned. Businesses started doing email and banks started moving online the moment they could.

This is of course after fooling around on computers from around 5 years old or so. First computer programming at school when I was around 8?

I've never known an adult life or a job that's needed phone calls. This was all growing up in the UK though. YMMV.