Nobody Answers Their Phone Anymore

"If I get another call about my car warranty I'm going to hurt somebody."  I get why you'd say that.  They are super annoying.  But you know, they are not the only people that call you.

Thirty years ago when the phone rang at your home you ran to it hoping that it was a friend to chat with, a buddy asking you to go out and play or if you were really lucky, that cute someone which forced you to use the fancy cordless phone or (if you were like me) that phone with the really long cord so you could keep the conversation away from mom and dad.

Fifteen years ago when you got a call on your cell phone you could see the caller ID and even if you didn't know the number, you still answered it.  Maybe it was a wrong number but you really wanted to know who it was.

Now when you get a call, you don't answer it.  Even if you know who is calling you still don't answer.  Maybe you are legit busy, or maybe you are just in the middle of an intense game of candy crush and don't want to stop.  So you hit ignore or the "can't talk now" text back button and then more than likely you don't call back.  You text back.  But if you don't recognize the number no chance you answer the phone.

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I get it.  You don't want the warranty call, the scam call or the wrong number call.  However those normally come from completely different locations or types of numbers  and some now actually say "Spam Risk".  I luckily still have an Arizona cell number so whenever I get a call from there, I know I don't have to answer that one.  But for the local calls, what if it's something important.  Maybe not super important but something you need from a doctor, mechanic or business contact that you just haven't saved yet.

We've become so bad at phone conversations that we now must text or email somebody first to ask them "do you have a minute to talk?".  Just call me!  If I can talk, I will.  If not, then leave me a message bro.  I'll call you back.

There is an art and skill to talking to somebody over the phone.  And I do mean phone.  Not FaceTime or Zoom.  (Don't get me started on the fact that now every business call needs to be done over video.  I don't want to see you!) I mean actually talking to somebody without seeing them.  Humans have devolved away from that skill of talking on the phone and our kids will never gain it.  Maybe a text of "you, me, pizza, 7pm" is easier than actually talking to somebody.  But that is a step above the grunts of caveman communication.

Let's start talking to people again.  Learn how to communicate with each other in more than emoji and 140 characters.  It might not seem like a lot, but I promise it will be a good thing.

Or maybe I'm totally wrong about this and people do answer their phone, they just don't answer my calls.  Damn.