5 reasons why phone calls are not in vogue

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Modern rules of communication have changed over the past couple of years. If earlier it was considered indecent not to answer someone else's call, especially on work issues, now 30-year-olds prefer to communicate with friends in instant messengers, solve matters there, and an incoming call without warning is perceived as an intrusion.

Introvert, extrovert, it doesn't matter: the millennial generation doesn't like answering calls that weren't expected. The first reaction to them is irritation. And for some, who are used to communicating with all their friends in instant messengers, a call from an unfamiliar number is associated with bad news.

Photo: 123RF / Valery Kachaev

We 30-year-olds have seen different phones. An apparatus with a rotating dial, a push-button telephone with the function of repeating the last number, a handset that could be carried around the apartment (that was happiness!). And what about our first mobile phones? It's funny to talk about things like that, but I remember my cell phone with special nostalgia and warmth. Could we then imagine that these funny "tubes" would take pictures, shoot and edit films, that with their help it would be possible to check into a plane, identify stars in the sky, learn a foreign language, keep a monthly calendar and read books?

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We are constantly with mobile phones, but we call less and less often. Here are 5 reasons why phoning is no longer the main means of communication:

1. There are other, more convenient ways of communication

Messenger programs have long gone beyond just texts: you can send each other both a voice message and a video. At the same time, communication is postponed: you read, listen and look at the interlocutor at a convenient moment for you. There is time to collect your thoughts before answering, to see all the information at will. You can communicate in the noisiest and most crowded place, even in time trouble, send a message. Moreover, now the majority of smartphone owners have mobile Internet, and communication in instant messengers is free.

2. A call is for a long time

Of course, many people ask to call when they are "too lazy to type." But hearing the phone ring, most people are convinced that it will take some time.

Photo: 123RF / Ion Chiosea

For example, how do we ask to borrow money in a message? Even if with preliminary introductions from afar, the interlocutor has the opportunity to run through them with his eyes, rushing to the essence of the question. It is considered impolite to call it. First you need to listen to the scrolling: "Hello, I'm not distracting?", "How are you?", "Listen, can I ask you?" A separate category is salespeople who make "cold" calls: in one of the films it is shown how they are taught to hold the client's attention for a longer time, so that it would be more difficult for him to refuse.

Extensive phone conversations do not inspire the same enthusiasm because:

3. We are busier than we used to be

First, we have matured. If earlier several times a day it was possible to chat on the phone for hours so that it was already burning in the ear, now we simply do not have these hours. Work, family, home, children, parents, creativity, sports, friendship, self-care, health - everything needs to find a place. Secondly, the modern pace of life is so much faster that even a minute of waiting at a traffic light and a second of delay in loading a page are sometimes difficult for people.

Speed is expected of us, and we expect it from others. We have less and less free time, and we want to optimize it so as not to make unnecessary movements. Waste minutes and hours aimlessly on someone else's whim - definitely not.

4. We are already in touch

Your acquaintances are less likely to give you a reason for an information hunger. How who spent the weekend - you know from social networks.

Photo: 123RF / Mirko Vitali

There is a feeling that everything is near, you know the latest news, and you can congratulate you on your birthday on the wall or send a message.

You no longer need to meet to find out how someone is doing. Now it is the same with a long telephone conversation.

5. Undivided attention is a luxury in the digital age

The generation of millennials (people born from 1981 to 2000) are used to living in a huge flow of information. They have "a lot of windows open at the same time" - they work, and check for updates on social networks, and communicate in instant messengers. But sometimes millennials get tired of the information noise that scatters attention. But to complete an important task, you need extreme concentration, presence in this moment. Doctors, psychologists, actors, journalists who hand over urgent material know this well: the last thing you need at this moment is for your mobile to ring.

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And not because of the ringtone, of course. A conversation on the phone requires full attention and switching to the interlocutor. And after the call, you won't be able to return to the previous state immediately.

Therefore, the caller without warning is perceived as someone who did not ask in advance how much the person on the other end of the line is now ready to speak.

Of course, we are not talking about close people (parents, loved ones, friends) and not about calls on important matters (including from clients). It would be polite for other callers to send a message first. What do you think?

Expert opinion

Igor Dyakonikhin, Business Development Director, MightyCall

Over the past 5 years, communication priorities have changed significantly. Modern man wants to choose himself when to communicate, with whom - and whether to communicate at all. In the era of social networks, communication has become so accessible and intimate that the very fact of a call, especially from an unknown number, is already considered an invasion of privacy. And a person wants to have the freedom to determine whether he needs this contact now or not. Another thing is a text message. SMS, social network, messenger. Here you have a choice - to answer or not, and if you answer, then when and how: to prepare or show imagination?

Research in the field of call centers shows that in the case of contacting a customer through digital channels, the likelihood of a successful contact increases 2-3 times. Telephone communications, of course, will never die out - this is the most effective channel in order to quickly communicate information with the confirmation of the other party. However, for everyday communication, digital channels already have a share of more than 70%.

Vitaly Bubenko, coach, business coach, consultant psychologist

Since we transmit not only information by voice, but also contexts, nuances, intonations, such communication will not go anywhere. At least in the next 20-30 years or more. And when people invent devices for transmitting thoughts at a distance and exchanging thoughts will be as easy as talking on the phone, only in this case communication by voice will become less relevant. At the same time, lovers of anachronisms will certainly remain, who now, for example, continue to use pagers.