Call me--not

Like Matt, I do not mourn the decline of the phone call:

Personally, I couldn't be more thrilled with the phone's decline. I used to be painfully shy as a person, and while I've largely gotten over that IRL I still find it incredibly stressful to talk to people on the phone.

Instead, I email. I SMS. I blog. I Twitter. I write on Facebook wall pages. I use IM and GChat constantly. Anything but the phone. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way, and in the years to come we phone-haters will inherit the earth. I call it progress.

Weird fact: every single (successful) blogger I know hates talking on the phone. I'm gregarious face to face, and I'm an inveterate user of various kinds of textual messaging, but I would rather scrub my floors with a toothbrush than get on the phone. I don't mind doing interviews, but whenever I make or receive any other kind of phone call, even from charming people whom I deeply love, I immediately start wondering about my exit strategy. One blogger I know won't even check his voicemail. I have no idea what this all means, but it must signify something about the kind of personality it takes to blog.

Comments

It's about control, and speed of information uptake. Reading is prefereable to listening because you can consume at whatever rate maxes out your ablity to take in info. Phonecalls disclose their data at whatever leisurely pace the other speaker feels like talking, and they tend to prevent much multitasking. With emails and text messages, you're not subject to the conversational whims of the other person, you can drop them for anything else more pressing, and you can just communicate faster overall.

Bloggers and blog consumers alike--we're just higher bandwidth people. Do you sit down and watch CNN, or do you have it on in the background with a computer on your lap? That's the test

Posted by Jack | March 10, 2008 5:26 PM

That's an interesting point about speed control.

Can it also be about being a visual vs. audio person? I process things better visually...having to learn something or absorb something purely audially leaves me cold.

Posted by Pia | March 10, 2008 5:37 PM

I abhor the phone also and it is really frustrating that some insist on using it.

I use an attorney who took 3-4 exchanges to realize that I don't ever want to hear his voice- keep it in email.

My company uses an electric provider that insists on renewing our contract every 6 months over the phone and fax rather than by email- we'll be looking for another provider there that is more compliant.

And our biggest customer insists on frequent phone contact- that's one we will accommodate, as they are the customer after all.

Posted by Tom | March 10, 2008 5:51 PM

You can't fine-tune a phone call.

Posted by Mike Antonucci | March 10, 2008 5:55 PM

I use an attorney who took 3-4 exchanges to realize that I don't ever want to hear his voice- keep it in email.

I'm an unsuccessful ex-blogger, and I hate phone calls for a variety of reasons. But as an attorney, I can tell you that there are a number of good reasons to do business with your lawyer over the phone. And email is just terrible, it's the most permanent form of communication known to man, along with the most easily abused.

Posted by Rob Lyman | March 10, 2008 6:08 PM

Count me in!

Posted by Tyler Cowen | March 10, 2008 6:28 PM

Commenter #1 is right on, but Rob's point is relevant: email is not only permanent, it's easily indexable/searchable. Bloggers and blog readers like to be able to go back and find that one perfect, relevant piece of data amid their daily barrage of information, and voicemails are impossible to meaningfully index or search except the long way (by listening). Even though my day job is not blogging, I'm seriously considering utilizing one of those web services that listens to your voicemails for you, and transcribes to email or text message.

Posted by LP | March 10, 2008 6:48 PM

Rob Lyman is correct. Attorneys hate using email to communicate with their clients. The attorney-client privilege only protects communications between an attorney and a client that are made in confidence. With email, and I've seen it a million times, the client/recipient either forwards a confidential communication to some one not involved, or cc's the message to people who aren't protected by the privilege--thus making the email discoverable to the other side. Email is a lawyer's nightmare.

Posted by Mortimer Madler | March 10, 2008 7:21 PM

As someone who has spent most of his life communicating with loved ones from a considerable distance, I do not suffer the problem you describe. My father (and a few others I care about deeply) DO.

One friend described the discomfort as being the result of the disembodiment of the voice at the other end of the line. I got the impression that she thought of it as talking to a ghost. My dad's never spoken for the source of his discomfort, but if I had to guess I would say that it's a combination of frustration over being pulled away from tasks, and discomfort with being unable to read the body language at the other end of the line.

Examination of my behavior and others' strongly correlates phone avoidance with world-class procrastination skills (whether in play at the moment or not) - and the reply lag drives me nuts.

The lack of recipient context information in IM is also a squickification component, but is inversely proportional to the degree of trust I feel for that individual.

What DOES drive me up the wall without exception, meanwhile, is leaving voicemails. I cope with it, but it's nothing more than flinging sound at a magnetic wall without opportunities to listen. I usually just dial back to the receptionist to leave an "I called" message, or send an e-mail.

Posted by ben | March 10, 2008 8:10 PM

I'm the same, though I'm not a successful blogger. I'd rather sit around hungry than order a pizza.

Posted by Swimmy | March 10, 2008 9:03 PM

I stopped answering the family phone when I was 12. I hate it. I have a cell phone, but I would rather text. There are a number of reasons:

1. Texts or email are shaped and targeted forms of communication. No extraneous ad-ons.

2. Written forms can be retrieved instantly for confirmation. If I ask for directions over the phone, invariably I have to slow down the conversant to write the damn things down. If it is a text, it is done already. Additionally, those directions are iron-clad correct because the person giving them wrote them.

3. Also written forms are good for finding people in noisy or crowded places or places that have bad reception. Text messages tend to go through concrete whereas phone calls don't.

4. I am sure there are more...

Posted by Richard Pointer | March 10, 2008 9:28 PM

swimmy -- seamlessweb saved my life.

Posted by will | March 11, 2008 12:16 AM

I don't like the phone either. However I do know people who prefer the phone to e-mail or texting. It is a bit easier to get an "emotional sense" from a phone call than from writing. It's easier to pick up on sarcasm or subtext.

So I really don't think calling is going to fade away entirely.

Posted by Thomas R | March 11, 2008 3:27 AM

Phonecalls disclose their data at whatever leisurely pace the other speaker feels like talking, and they tend to prevent much multitasking.

Always with the multitasking. I don't know where you folks gets these tasks that only require 10% of your attention.

"Disclose their data." Hm. I admit, the data I care about doesn't generally come from other people. I have to figure out what I need and take steps to gather it myself, and for that I need focus. If I depended on communication from other people to move things forward, perhaps I'd favor multitasking too.

With emails and text messages, you're not subject to the conversational whims of the other person, you can drop them for anything else more pressing, and you can just communicate faster overall.

That's a lunch I'm looking forward to.

Posted by BP Beckley | March 11, 2008 10:52 AM

Not that I'm a blogger to be reckoned with, but although I am generally reluctant to MAKE phone calls, I do enjoy talking on the phone, and have had hour-long conversations that way.

My record was a 5 hour long-distance call back when these things were still expensive - over $100 without thinking about it.

Posted by Jens Fiederer | March 11, 2008 11:22 AM