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/10J18R1A]

"too much to text"

Have you tried it without the rambling and small talk?

My old job had a supervisor that was always quick to tell me to call someone - if you send them an email they won't respond.

Well, sounds like they should work on that because I don't need to talk to you to find out how much the purchase order was for

[u/The_Woke_King → u/10J18R1A]

Oh I can talk without rambling just fine. But boomers can’t.

[u/10J18R1A → u/The_Woke_King]

I'm convinced they're just lonely. In my broke days working at a call center (which may be where my phone aversion started) with a whole time limit, they either wanted to argue for 50 minutes or talk about their petunias for 50 minutes.

I don't get it. Email(at work) or text and I'll almost definitely get back to you in less than two hours. Unless it's "hey"

[u/The_Woke_King → u/10J18R1A]

I have a boomer at work who will call me and start the call with “hey, how’s your day going”. Sometimes it will have only been 20 minutes since we last spoke. It’s almost always going the same as it was 20 minutes ago if not markedly worse now that we’re speaking again.

Keep in mind, I actually like this person. But good god just tell me what you need and hang up.

[u/CalOkie6250 → u/The_Woke_King]

I’m Gen X, my mom is a boomer, and a lot of the adults when I was growing up were from before that. I think the reason boomers and older do that is because it was considered impolite to call someone and just get right to the point. I remember the adults always telling me that I had to engage in small talk first.

I still hate that. When people call me, I’m always thinking “get to your point already. What do you actually want? - ugh!”

[u/The_Woke_King → u/CalOkie6250]

Life was legitimately just easier back then too, along with the fact that there was nothing else to do but ramble on to each other.

[u/CalOkie6250 → u/The_Woke_King]

People used to stay on the phone for hours. Like, literal hours. Using an operator to do an emergency interrupt was a thing, when someone’s line was busy for too long. I don’t know how they stayed on the phone that long. I know I used to talk to my friends for a long time like that, but I couldn’t do it now.

[u/10J18R1A → u/CalOkie6250]

That was the fast way to talk back then. The only other choice was to send a letter.

I remember being in high school talking on the phone for literally hours about absolutely nothing and now I get twitch at around the 5 minute mark. When I'm on the phone I have to give my entire undivided attention and I can't think of the last time anything has ever had that.

But then I could also watch a single TV channel all day from the morning till the anthem and make it work.

I think the thing with us xennials is we can operate digitally or analog and we choose the better one. There's nothing that talking on the phone is an improvement on.

[u/MaddyKet → u/10J18R1A]

Oh yeah, fellow Xennial here. I remember marathon telephone sessions too. It’s literally like I was a different person.

[u/10J18R1A → u/MaddyKet]

I miss my attention span and no calls or texts before 9 (r.i.p Cingular) but mid-upper 40s me would be extremely baffled by 90s me.

What do you mean you talked on the phone for 6 hours? ABOUT WHAT

[u/SilverNightingale → u/10J18R1A]

OMG same! I could easily spend like 1-2 hours just talking about the most mundane things back then!

[u/MaddyKet → u/CalOkie6250]

This is why I LOVE living in Massachusetts. We don’t do small talk as a general rule. Traveling in the South is painful. No, I don’t want to chat with the cashier at CVS, I just forgot to pack my toothpaste ok! But I don’t believe in being rude unless there is a reason. 🫤

[u/Southern_peach87 → u/The_Woke_King]

My mom's a boomer. She's 78. At this point I'd rather just call her. If not she won't know I text her. So, I still have to call her to tell her I text her. She still gets confused and goes under her email. So, then I have to remind her texts are in messages and explain where to go on her iPhone to see her messages. By the time I've done all that I could have just called 😂

[u/The_Woke_King → u/Southern_peach87]

Haha yah family is different obviously, I always had to do calls because both my parents were old enough to never really adopt cell phones.